Bacterial Spot on my romas

howdy!

I went to my local botanical garden which had a county extension agent there that day and he looked at the spots on my tomatoes (which I had thought was blight), and said that it's actually bacterial spot. His response was that I should probably pull up the plants.

What should I do? They're starting to produce. I did cut off about the bottom third of the plants today.

Is there a product I can use to hinder this? would copper fungicide work? I'd think it wouldn't since it's bacterial spot and not a true fungus.

any advice appreciated - i'd really like to get an actual tomato harvest this year. :)

Blight is just a general word that many folks use to describe a sick tomato plant, whether it be foliage diseases or soilborne systemic diseases.

If he's absolutely sure about the problem being Bacterial Spot I know I wouldn't pull up the plants and yes, I and many folks have had Bacterial Spot on the plants. For the most part I ignore it b'c in general if it's near the end of the season it progresses far slower than do the fungal foliage pathogens.

But if it were me I'd get, as you suggested, a copper containing product, but first remove all diseased leaves and bag them. Kocide is a good one and Bonide makes one as well. I'd start with the copper and see how that does.

And yes, I know that some folks are concerned about copper buildup in the soil, but.....

Carolyn

thanks, carolyn. are kocide and bonide available at the big box stores like HD and Lowe's?

for me, it's not the end of the season, but beginning/middle. I planted in late October. I'm having a lot of flowers, but few actual fruits. I don't want to lose what little fruit I have.

glad to know i won't have to....

I just noted you're commercial. If that's the case you probably have a pesticide license and have access to many products that home growers do not have access to.

If you aren't commercial then Bonide is a brand name and they make many many products including a copper based one. I don't remember who makes Kocide but you can Google it to find out and/or ask when you go to the store.

I presume both are available at big box stores, but I don't know for sure, they should be, but when necessary I deal with the Agway store in the village who will order any product requested of them.

And this is all predicated on the EXT person making the correct diagnosis, less so if it was someone who is volunteering in their office, as in a Master Gardener doing volunteer time and thus relatively new to the area of diagnosing tomato diseases.

There's no way I can say that the stuff will work, but I can't see pulling plants before at least trying to curb the infection. Bacterial Spot and Bacterial Speck are spread via wind and embedded in rain drops so you should keep on a strict spray schedule.

Is this the first time you've seen any tomato foliage disease? If so that would be a rare event so you're lucky if that's true and this is the first one ever seen.


Carolyn

Carolyn

:)

So Fla Commercial - i chose user name poorly when i first joined - actually, I am a commercial real estate agent; not a grower.

The person at the EXT office was called 'dr', so I'm *assuming* he's some sort of horticulturist? All I know is the extension office made me make a special trip to see him because he is only in the office on thursdays, and he's the 'vegetable expert'. He said that it was bacterial spot. I thought it was blight, given that I'd had a problem with (what I thought) was blight during the summer, but in hindsight, it may have actually been spot that I had the problem with earlier in the year.

all I know is that I pruned my bushes back so much this morning that with the tomatoes hanging down, it looks sort of....perverted, and I REALLY don't want to have to pull them up.

I did note, though that the basil I planted (read somewhere it was a good companion plant) in the same bed has dark splotches of (what looks to me) to be mold. I showed the 'dr' an iphone photo of it when I went in that day, and he said that it looked like the basil had wet feet. I hope the basil is not indicative of some problem that could also affect the romas.....