My tomatoes are struggling

Home › My tomatoes are struggling
kevinb23 asks:

Question

My tomatoes are struggling

Additional Details

Hi - I think my tomatoes have a fungus or something similar. The leaves have brown rings and turning yellow. Some of the green leaves are curling, and some are not producing a lot of flowers/tomatoes (particularly the determinate variety). The sweet 100 however is doing well. I started treating this week with Serenade. I have a couple of questions and a concern. First the concern - the stem of one plant has a black stain. Could that be Late Blight? It seems early for that.

Also, do I need to reapply the Serenade after it rains? How effective is the Serenade? I don’t like using the more powerful chemicals like Ortho but I also don’t want to lose my plants.

My soil is good. I’ve had it tested, I compost and add fertilizer at planting and afterwards. I have drip hoses to avoid overhead watering.

Answer

Early Blight is what i think you toms. have. Early blight causes The fruit to be exopsed to the sun which may cause sunscald. Always discard in the trash all the inffected leaves for they can and will over winter in the garden. Serenade will be effevtive to control the blight (Alternaria solani). I would make sure the soaker hoses come on in the early morning avoid late day watering so that the plants are somewhat dry during the evening. Humid 70 -85 degree temp. is the most ideal time for the fungus to spread.