If you use tools, you will need to wash and sanitize them as well when you are done so they do not infect any other plants. If you touch the infected leaves, make sure to wash your hands well before working in healthy tomato plants. Do not leave them in the soil or near the plant. The first thing you should do when managing early blight is cut leaves with leaf spots and get rid of them. Managing or getting rid of early blight can be difficult but there are some things that can be done. This will keep your soil healthy and in turn keep your plant healthy.Īnd each season when you're about to plant your garden again make sure that it has been at least two years before you plant tomatoes in the same spot. Pruning the bottom leaves of your plant can also prevent early blight and its spores from splashing up from the soil onto leaves when you water your plant.Īnother thing you can do to help prevent early blight is to increase the airflow by trellising your plant, removing weeds and dead leaves, and spacing plants apart giving them plenty of room to grow. Letting water pool around the bottom of the plant and on the leaves can cause a number of different problems for your plant so it's best to avoid it altogether. There are a few things you can do in your garden and an easy thing to start off with is covering the soil under your tomato plants with mulch, and there are many different varieties to choose from (organic, inorganic).Īnother way to prevent early blight is to make you are always water at the base of each plant, being careful not to overwater or let water collect on the leaves. Martin Draper looked at samples the workshop attendees brought from their gardens and gave suggestions as to what can be done to bring the plants back to health.Since early blight is so common on tomato plants and how quickly it can destroy your plants, it is good to know how to prevent it. There are many USDA extension offices throughout the country and research facilities on every land-grand university, so if you have further questions or concerns about tomato diseases feel free to contact one of these places. Garden clean-up is another preventative key, as the diseases’ spores can overwinter on plants left in the garden from the previous year. This needs to be reapplied regularly to maintain its efficiency. To create a solution that prevents and treats disease, add a heaping tablespoon of baking soda, a teaspoon of vegetable oil, and a small amount of mild soap to a gallon of water and spray the tomato plants with this solution. If you garden organically, adding compost extracts or teas can be a treatment. A fungicide intended for different plants, not vegetables, won’t make a difference and may cause problems. Some fungicides can be very effective however, it is important to follow the label. Keep a watch on your garden, and pluck any leaves that show signs of disease and take out infected plants. This way, the space will make it slightly more difficult for diseases to spread quickly, and the airflow will keep the plants dry. It is also recommended to stake your tomato plants instead of caging them, and space them appropriately. Watering at the base of the plant can help prevent this if you do use a sprinkler system or similar method to water your tomatoes, do so in the morning to allow the plant an opportunity to dry throughout the day. Moisture, especially on the leaves, provides great conditions for the spores of these diseases to make themselves at home. These diseases can be spread many ways, and knowing what they are can supply simple solutions. Early and late blight affect potatoes as well, in fact, late blight caused the Irish potato famine. It looks white and fuzzy on the underside of the leaf, and destroys crops quickly. Late blight affects large portions of the leaves. Early blight can set in the stems and leaves, and is identified by legions with target-like rings. Septoria leaf spot is characterized by small, dark circular spots that often have yellow halos around them they appear on the lower leaves of the plant first. Don’t let the names early blight and late blight mislead you, they can appear at any time during the year. He discussed in detail three pathogenic diseases: septoria leaf spot, early blight, and late blight. Martin Draper, a plant pathologist through the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture, taught us how to identify them and what we can do to treat and prevent them. The People’s Garden Workshop topic this week was tomato blights and spots, and Dr. However, several diseases love our tomato plants just as much as we do. We are passionate about our tomatoes and savor that ripe, fresh fruit. Written by Kayla Harless, People’s Garden InternĪlmost everyone who gardens grows tomato plants.
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