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Every gardener dreams of growing a rich harvest of organic tomatoes on his plot. Unfortunately, it is not always possible to avoid the use of chemicals for feeding and treating plants against diseases and pests. The range of chemical protection products for tomatoes is growing every year. Among them there are many copper-containing drugs.
Many vegetable growers with extensive experience in growing tomatoes in open and protected ground prefer processing tomatoes copper sulfate against late blight. These are necessary measures, especially if tomatoes are grown in a greenhouse. It's no secret that air humidity is difficult to regulate, so there is plenty of space for late blight to reproduce here.
What is copper sulfate
Copper sulfate is a substance of inorganic origin. In chemistry it is called copper sulfate salt. If you open the package with the substance, you can see blue crystals. Dissolving in water, they color it sky blue.
You can buy copper sulfate in specialized or hardware stores.The packaging can be plastic or in a bottle. Packaging from 100 grams to 500. The substance should be stored in a dry, dark room. Otherwise, it will lose its properties.
It is widely used in agricultural technology for growing vegetables and fruits in small household plots and large agricultural enterprises, both as a fertilizer and as a means of treating premises, soil and plants from various pests and diseases.
Dissolved crystals have fungicidal, insecticidal and antiseptic effects. In addition, copper is necessary for plant development as a fertilizer.
Infections, including late blight, most often affect plants with reduced immunity. Tomatoes will not produce the desired harvest, and the taste of the fruit will decrease.
In what cases do you resort to copper sulfate?
Under no circumstances should you treat tomatoes with copper sulfate without assessing the condition of the soil and plants.
It often happens that the soil on the site contains a minimal amount of humus or there is too much sand in it. Plants do not receive the necessary nutrition, weaken, and cannot resist diseases and pests.
If the purpose of processing tomatoes is to increase soil fertility, then dry copper sulfate is mixed with the soil before digging. It is best to carry out such work annually in the fall. One gram of crystalline substance is enough for one square meter.
Experienced vegetable growers do not often resort to using copper sulfate to treat tomatoes against late blight. After all, they wisely use crop rotation and plant green manure on the site.
A blue copper solution is used for spraying when foliar feeding tomatoes. Copper starvation can be identified by whitish spots on the tops, weak growth of shoots or their death. like this processing tomatoes Copper sulfate is carried out in early July. One gram of blue crystals is dissolved in a ten-liter bucket.
If you neglect the instructions and add more copper sulfate, you can burn the plants. The leaves will turn black, and the tomatoes themselves will either die or their growth will slow down significantly. When treating tomatoes with a solution of copper sulfate of a lower concentration, you will not get the expected result.
Breeding rules
Before you start treating tomatoes with copper sulfate, you need to carefully read the instructions. From this substance you can prepare compositions with different percentages of vitriol. To prepare the mother solution, take 100 grams of blue crystals and one liter of warm water. After dissolving the copper, the volume of liquid is adjusted to 10 liters. This will be a 1% copper sulfate solution. To get 2% you will need 200 grams per 10 liters of water and so on.
Most often, Bordeaux mixture is prepared for processing tomatoes. And now about how to dilute copper sulfate for processing tomatoes.
Step-by-step recommendations:
- For dilution, it is better to use plastic containers.First, a hundred-gram package of vitriol is dissolved in a small amount of warm water. When the blue crystals are completely dissolved, the amount of water is adjusted to five liters.
- In another plastic bucket you need to put 150-200 grams of lime and add 5 liters of water. The result is a white liquid resembling milk. The mixture must be mixed thoroughly.
- Pour the blue solution of copper sulfate into the milk of lime in a thin stream.
Be careful: it is copper sulfate into the lime, and not vice versa.
- The solution must be constantly stirred. The result is a cloudy suspension.
How to prepare Bordeaux mixture:
You can check the acidity of the resulting solution using a regular metal nail. It is immersed in the liquid for 3 minutes.
If the copper has not settled on it (there are no rusty spots), then the solution is not too acidic, just what is needed.
The resulting one percent solution Tomatoes are treated with Bordeaux mixture from late blight. Preparing Bordeaux mixture does not take much time.
But the solution cannot be stored, it quickly loses its properties. It should be used within 5-9 hours.
After processing, an impermeable film is formed on the tops of tomatoes. At first, it does not allow sunlight to pass through. But then the film disappears, and the danger of the spread of late blight decreases.
Features of processing tomatoes against late blight
Copper sulfate is an excellent means of killing late blight spores on tomatoes. There are other copper-containing preparations that can be purchased ready-made in the store. For example, Zineb, Bordeaux mixture.
Copper itself is a heavy metal. If ingested by a person in its pure form, it can cause severe poisoning.As for copper sulfate, plants do not absorb it, which means the fruits are safe. The vitriol solution, getting on the foliage, stems, fruits, remains on their surface. Before eating, tomatoes should be washed well.
Tomatoes are treated against late blight with copper sulfate three times during the growing season. Not only when the disease begins to progress, but as a preventive measure. Many gardeners with experience in growing tomatoes have become convinced of the benefits of vitriol in practice. They believe that this is one of the best means of fighting spores of fungal diseases harmlessly to humans.
Prevention is important
According to gardeners, there is no need to wait for the outbreak of the epidemic. It is easier to prevent any disease than to treat it. The source of late blight does not have to be on your site. Spores can get from shoes and clothes. Moreover, they are easily carried by the wind from the neighboring garden.
The first treatment of tomatoes in the soil with copper sulfate against late blight is essentially preventive. And if you notice small spots on the leaves or shoots of tomatoes, as they say, God himself ordered them to start processing. Moreover, it is not always possible to use crop rotation due to small land plots.
The first stage of the struggle
You need to start processing tomatoes before sowing tomato seeds for seedlings. Containers for sowing seeds and soil are treated with a solution of copper sulfate. To do this, prepare a 3% solution of copper sulfate. This preventative measure is aimed at preventing the disease. In addition to late blight spores, the causative agents of blackleg also die. This means that the seedlings will be protected at first.
Second phase
When 2-3 true leaves appear on the plants, it’s time to pick. Typically, new planting containers and soil will be required. If the cups are new and the soil was purchased at the store, you don’t have to treat them.
But most often, vegetable growers use soil mixtures prepared with their own hands. Plastic cups, as a rule, are also not thrown away after last year’s plantings, but are reused. Despite the fact that after planting the seedlings, the containers are washed, late blight spores can settle on them over the summer.
24 hours before picking tomatoes, containers and soil must be treated with a copper sulfate solution to protect the seedlings from possible late blight infection. But the concentration of the copper sulfate solution should be one percent. The fact is that the seedlings still have very delicate root hairs; they can be damaged by a strong solution. The tomatoes may not die, but they will slow down until they develop a root system.
Third stage
Regardless of whether late blight ruled your area last year or not, preventive measures still need to be taken. A third root treatment of tomatoes against late blight will also be required before planting seedlings in open ground or a greenhouse. The wells are prepared one day in advance and filled with a one percent solution of copper sulfate. This concentration will be enough, because the tomatoes have already been subjected to root treatment twice before.
You will need a lot of blue liquid, because one liter of copper sulfate must be poured into each well to prevent late blight. The solution is prepared immediately before treatment.
After filling the holes with copper sulfate solution, fill them with soil, add compost or humus and leave them like that until the next day. After 24 hours, tomatoes can be planted in the treated holes. The agricultural technology of working the land with vitriol does not change.
Root treatments of tomatoes against late blight with copper sulfate end here. But foliar treatment must be carried out in order to consolidate the protective forces of the plants. It is timed to coincide with the appearance of the first ovaries. At this time, late blight begins to intensify, so protection of green stems and leaves from the penetration of disease spores is required.
For spraying, a weak concentration of Bordeaux mixture is used, approximately 0.1-0.2%. A stronger solution will act aggressively. Instead of the desired protective film, burns may form on the leaves. Tissues will begin to die, plants will have to spend energy on healing, and not on flowering and setting fruit. Naturally, the yield of your beds will decrease sharply.
Treating a greenhouse with copper sulfate
Copper sulfate can be used to treat tomatoes against late blight without fear, because it does not form toxic compounds. Copper ions are present in the soil in small quantities and combine freely with water. Excessive amounts of copper in the soil are also not allowed. Therefore, soil treatment with copper sulfate solution must be approached with caution. As we have already noted, the soil in the beds and in the greenhouse should be cultivated no more than once every five years.
spring-cleaning
If you limit yourself to root and foliar treatment of tomato seedlings with a copper sulfate solution, it is not always possible to avoid an outbreak of late blight.The fact is that the spores of a fungal plant disease are very tenacious. They can easily tolerate any frost both in the open ground and in the greenhouse. In closed ground, spores have more space to hide: any crevices, cracks on the greenhouse frame and in wooden beds. Therefore, general cleaning is required.
Preparations for planting tomatoes in the spring should begin in the fall. If the greenhouse is standard made of polycarbonate, after harvesting and removing tomato stems and tops from the area, you must thoroughly wash the entire surface with hot water and any detergents added. Using a brush, clean the cracks and joints: these are where fungal spores can hide.
If the frame of the greenhouse is made of wooden slats and the frames are glass, we first carry out the same general cleaning. Some vegetable growers use a sulfur bomb for processing. In this case, you cannot enter the greenhouse for three days.
After this, you need to steam the greenhouse with boiling water. There are different options. You can spray the surface and frame with a spray bottle or place tanks of boiling water and close the greenhouse for several hours. Only after the preparation has been completed can you begin to treat the greenhouse against late blight with copper sulfate.
If for some reason you didn’t thoroughly clean the greenhouse in the fall, it’s okay. It can be done in the spring a month before planting tomatoes.
Processing rules
Treating the surface of the greenhouse with copper sulfate is especially necessary if there are a lot of pests in it. In other cases, this is a preventative measure. Before spraying the copper sulfate solution, the greenhouse and soil are treated with bleach for four hours.Up to 600 grams are added to a ten-liter bucket.
After this, spraying begins. To treat the surface of the greenhouse, 2% Bordeaux mixture is prepared. This treatment can be carried out in autumn and spring.
How to use copper sulfate solution:
How to treat the soil
No one will dispute the fact that it is in the soil that pests, nematodes and disease spores are found. Therefore, tillage is necessary. It has also been performed since the fall. You can treat heavily contaminated soil with a formaldehyde solution (40%). You cannot enter the greenhouse for three days, then you need to ventilate it for a day. To spray the greenhouse, a one percent solution of Bordeaux mixture is prepared. If the treatment is carried out in the spring, then a month before placing the plants in the greenhouse.
To destroy not only late blight, but also powdery mildew, bacteriosis, and tomato blight, calcium hydroxide is added to the Bordeaux mixture.
To cultivate soil in a regular bed, the composition of the copper sulfate solution is prepared identically.
Safety regulations
Since copper sulfate is a chemical substance, safety rules must be followed when working with it.
Let's talk about it:
- When diluting copper sulfate to process tomatoes, use any utensils other than metal.
- The prepared solution cannot be stored for long periods of time. After just nine hours, the efficiency drops sharply, and after 24 hours it is zero.
- When treating tomatoes with a solution of copper sulfate against late blight, remove animals.
- To spray tomatoes, soil, and the surface of the greenhouse, it is better to use special sprayers.
- When working with the drug, use at least rubber gloves. Goggles and respiratory protection will come in handy.
- After completing the work, wash your hands, face, and other exposed parts of the body with warm water and soap.
- Copper sulfate sachets should be stored in a place inaccessible to children and animals.
Conclusion
If you want healthy tomatoes to grow in your greenhouse or open ground and produce a large harvest of tasty, healthy fruits, do not forget about treating the plants, the surface of the greenhouse and the soil to destroy late blight.
As a rule, vegetable growers use solutions containing copper sulfate for this purpose. This is an excellent assistant in feeding and treating tomatoes against late blight and other fungal diseases. But since it is a chemical, you need to be careful when using it.
We must not forget about the dosage. Preparing a solution of copper sulfate, Bordeaux or Burgundy liquid by eye is unacceptable. An overdose will negatively affect the condition of the tomatoes. A large amount of copper is also unacceptable for soil.
Informative, thanks