These tips will help you stop early blight and late blight from ruining your tomato harvest.
Tomato blight is a common problem that can quickly reduce your plants to sad, scraggly messes.
This guide provides all the details for identifying early and late tomato blight.
Credit:Tomasz Klejdysz / Getty Images
Tomasz Klejdysz / Getty Images
What Is Tomato Blight?
There are two distinct types of tomato blight: early blight and late blight.
A tomato plant can be infected with both early blight and late blight simultaneously.
Credit: Peter Krumhardt
Late blight begins in the canopy and moves down to the soil level.
Early Tomato Blight Symptoms
Early tomato blight is first found on the plant’s lower leaves.
It is spread fromfungal spores in the soilsplashing onto the plant’s lower leaves.
Credit: Scot Nelson
The fungus produces roughly circular dark brown spots on stems and leaves at the base of a plant.
This tomato disease tends to start in the canopy of the plant and then slowly spreads downward.
The first symptoms of late blight appear as brown or tan spots on the upper leaves of tomato plants.
The spots often have a light green or yellow ring around the irregular outer edge.
Late blight can also attack tomato fruit.Infected fruitdevelops brown spots that become leathery.
Rot lurks under the outer covering, so you probably don’t want to eat infected fruit.
Once symptoms of early blight appear, control is nearly impossible.
Tomato plants don’t typically recover from an early blight infection.
Slow the spread of the disease by pruning tomato foliage to improve airflow.
Thin out the whole plant by removing one-third or so of the foliage.
Fruit production will likely be reduced withextensive pruning.
There are no early blight-resistant tomato varieties, but several varieties do show good tolerances of the disease.
Choose a disease-tolerant tomato variety when possible.
The tiny spores are known to travel 10 miles or more, starting new disease cycles wherever they land.
Once late tomato blight occurs in your garden, it cannot be eradicated.
However, it can be somewhat controlled with weekly fungicide sprays.
Products containing copper or chlorothalonil are the best products for controlling late blight.
Fungicide sprays, like other chemical controls, can harmbeneficial wildlifein the process of controlling plant diseases.
To avoid late blight in the first place, plant tomato varieties that have late blight resistance.
Tips for Preventing Tomato Blight
1.
Plant resistant or disease-tolerant varieties.
Cultivars tolerant of early blight include Mountain Magic, Celebrity, Juliet, and Rutgers.
Late blight resistant cultivars include Mountain Gem, Plum Regal, Mountain Magic, and Red Pear.
Grow plants on stakes or trellises.
The foliage oftomato plants supported by stakesor trellises dries much faster than plants allowed to ramble over the ground.
Fast dry time limits the spread of fungal disease.
Also, minimizing leaf-to-soil contact can prevent disease spread in the case of early blight.
Add a layer of mulch.
Limit disease spread by pruning away infected leaves as soon as you notice them.
Gather the infected leaves and bury, burn, or discard them in a plastic bag.
Plant your tomatoes 3 to 4 feet apart to promote good air circulation.
The goal is to help foliage dry off as quickly as possible, which limits disease spread.
Deliver water directly to the base of plants.
Focus on growing healthy plants.
verify to give yourtomato plants enough water, nutrients, and sunlight.
Once a tomato plant has a blight, it’s almost impossible to completely get rid of it.
No, in factEpsom saltmay hasten the spread of blight.
It can overload the soil with magnesium, which prevents the plant from getting enough calcium.
Don’t add it to your soil when planting tomatoes.
