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Every time a gardener visits a greenhouse with tomatoes in the second half of summer, he not only admires the ripening harvest, but also takes a close look at the plants: are they healthy, are there any brown spots on the leaves? And if any are detected, all efforts made for preventive fight against late blight, turned out to be in vain. The disease has nevertheless appeared, and, therefore, the entire harvest is at risk.
What to do when the first signs of late blight appear
What can be done for tomatoes in this case? First of all, you need to assess the damage caused by the insidious enemy. If only a few plants are damaged, all diseased parts of the plants should be removed. If the disease has progressed far and there are a lot of damaged leaves and fruits, such bushes must be removed without pity. All infected parts of plants must be removed from the site and burned.
No treatment with solutions is allowed, much less watering immediately after removing plant parts.
By tearing off leaves, the gardener creates wounds on the plants. At high humidity, they become a gateway for infection, and the disease takes on a hurricane course.
For example, use trichopolum from late blight on tomatoes.
Treatment of diseased tomatoes
Metronidazole or trichopolum is an antibacterial drug that is used to treat many diseases in humans. It also effectively treats fungal infections. Metronidazole also suppresses the development of fungal infections on plants, including tomatoes.
To combat late blight, there are many means, both based on chemicals and folk. It is advisable to use most of them prophylactically, long before signs of the disease appear. But if it was not possible to do this on time or such climatic conditions developed - cold weather and prolonged rains, in which all the measures taken were ineffective, it is necessary to resort to therapeutic measures for already diseased tomatoes.
Method of using Trichopolum against late blight on tomatoes
The recipe for using this drug is quite simple. 20 tablets or two blisters of trichopolum or its cheaper analogue metronidazole should be dissolved in one bucket of water. To do this, it is better to prepare a concentrated solution in warm water; any container will do. Then bring the volume of the solution to ten liters by simply adding clean water. If you have to treat already diseased tomatoes, the treatment is carried out especially carefully, not forgetting that the causative agent of the disease is most often located on the underside of the leaves. Therefore, the entire plant needs to be sprayed against late blight.Since the causative agent of this disease can be on all parts of tomatoes, including on the roots, each plant is additionally watered with the prepared solution. But you need to water a little, no more than 50 ml per bush.
Some gardeners combine metronidazole with brilliant green or iodine. This treatment is believed to be more effective. The spraying agent is prepared by adding one pharmaceutical bottle of brilliant green to the prepared trichopolum solution. Processing is carried out in the usual way.
In order not to harm your health, do not exceed the concentration of the solution and do not treat tomatoes with it more than three times a season.
Preventive measures against late blight on tomatoes
The best way to preserve the tomato harvest is to prevent late blight from entering the area. To do this, you need to take certain measures long before planting tomatoes in the ground. Preventing this dangerous disease is not an easy task. It has many components.
- Every autumn, treat the soil in the greenhouse with a solution of phytosporin, and disinfect the greenhouse itself using a sulfur bomb, if its structure is made of wood, or with the same phytosporin. Copper sulfate if the greenhouse frame is made of metal.
- Treat tomato seeds and potato planting material with agents that destroy the pathogen. The causative agent of late blight can survive on healthy-looking potato planting material and on tiny hairs on the surface of tomato seeds.
- Before planting, soak the roots of the seedlings in a phytosporin solution for two hours. Flush the holes with the same solution before planting.
- Monitor the proper nutrition of tomatoes both in the greenhouse and in the open ground. Do not overfeed tomatoes with nitrogen. This weakens the plant's immunity.
- Use immunostimulants to increase the immunity of tomatoes.
- Carry out preventive treatment of tomatoes long before the possible appearance of the disease, not forgetting other nightshades, especially potatoes.
- Mulch the soil around the plants with dry hay. The hay layer should not be less than ten centimeters; under such conditions, access to late blight pathogens from the soil will be difficult.
- Properly water tomatoes without creating high humidity in the greenhouse. Water only at the roots, without wetting the leaves.
- It is better to water tomatoes early in the morning so that the top layer of soil dries out during the day.
- Watering should not be frequent, but abundant, to completely saturate the soil layer in which the tomato roots live. In hot weather, watering is carried out every three days. If it is cool, water no more than once a week.
- Never use cold water for irrigation. The stress that the plants will experience will greatly weaken them and contribute to the development of the disease.
- Ventilate the greenhouse after watering to reduce air humidity.
- Never pick off stepsons at high air humidity, before watering and immediately after it.
Completely cure late blight tomatoes impossible. You can only slow down the development of the disease. Therefore, it is so important to try to prevent tomatoes from becoming diseased by taking all preventive measures.
