Foliar disease or weather wear?

I have some seedlings that I bought to replace a few that I lost because I didn't get them planted in time. So far, I have kept the new plants isolated. I didn't notice that there may be a problem on a couple of the plants until I had them home. There are irregular black spots on many of the leaves that look suspicious to me. I searched other threads (quickly) and didn't find anything that looks like this. Should I just destroy these plants to keep from spreading something to the other tomatoes, or is it likely that the spots are from water and cool weather?

David

To me it looks most closely to one of the common foliage infections, possibly BacterialS pot. Take off all affected leaves and dispose of them.

I've given links here to several excellent disease sites, the TAMU and Cornell ones being the best IMO, and if you didn't save them I can fetch them again.

There are good antifungals that can be used to help prevent the fungal ones, but what can be used to help prevent the bacterial foliage infections is not that good and copper is one of them.

Foliage infections are transmitted via air and embedded in rain droplets, not transmitted from plan tto plant and since they were not infected at you rplace, I'd suggest just getting rid of the affected leaves, especially before there's any shedding of organisms to the soil which can then reappear as splashback infection the next year.

Carolyn

I've looked at plants at 3 different locations this season and all had diseased plants. It's the same thing I had here in 2010 but I've never seen it elsewhere. It's not the same as David's.

I did buy 2 plants at one location but I kept them apart from my other plants. A couple of days later a few leaves looked funny, they had a purpieish color to them. Then they started getting tan and crispy on one plant it started to spread to the stem. I bagged them and tossed them. I went back to the nursery and many of their plants were now showing signs of this.

I thought if it was fungus the spores could spread from plant to plant? I do find it strange that diseased plants have been seen at so many different places when I usually don't notice anything. If the disease doesn't spread from plant to plant how does it infect an entire GH?

I'll pull the leaves with visible damage, then. I'd rather lose the seedlings rather than risk spreading an infection. I looked yesterday for some of the links to tomato pathogens but didn't find them in a quick search. Thanks for your help.

David

I don't know how well this cut and paste will work, but I do suggest starting with the TAMU ones as well as with the Cornell ones.

Tomato Problem Solver:
http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/p...problemsolver/

Disease Management in Tomatoes - ND State University:
http://www.ext.nodak.edu/extpubs/pla...rop/pp659w.htm

Nutrient Deficiency Symptoms - University of Massachusetts:
http://www-unix.oit.umass.edu/~psoil120/manual/lab7.html

Digital Diagnostics at OSU:
http://www.ento.okstate.edu/ddd/vegetable.htm

Color pictures of mineral deficiencies in tomatoes:
http://www.luminet.net/~wenonah/min-def/tomatoes.htm

More pictures of mineral deficiencies in tomatoes:
http://www.plantphys.net/article.php?ch=t&id=289

Physiological, Nutritional, and other Disorders of Tomatoes - University of Florida IFAS Extension:
http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/HS200

Images of beneficial insects and organisms:
http://is.tc.cc.tx.us/~mstorey/bugs.htm

Cornell Vegetable MD Online:
http://vegetablemdonline.ppath.corne...Tom_ComDis.htm

Cornell Tomato Disease Identification Key by Affected Plant Part:
http://vegetablemdonline.ppath.corne...omLeafKey.html

Actinovate and Exel LG application instructions for hose-end sprayer for large areas (or just to save time):
http://www.tomatoville.com/showthread.php?t=17203

Daconil application instructions for dial and spray/hose-end sprayer:
http://www.tomatoville.com/showpost....3&postcount=14

(last updated 2011.08.12)

Carolyn , the above from the first page of tomato diseases and pests from Tomatoville



This message was edited Apr 13, 2013 10:17 AM

Wow, Carolyn! Thank you! I've looked at the TAMU and Cornell 1000s of times but all this information will keep me busy. I remember when I used to read 5-10 books a month, now I read about plants and their diseases.

The places I saw the diseased plants get them from different places. One gets them from a local GH very strange.