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Tomato pesticides, anything better than Malathion?
On Aug 21, 11:05 am, Max Wright wrote:
In message , Omelet writes Me neither! But that black growth sounds suspiciously like blight - which no amount of insecticide - or fungicide, for that matter - is going to cure. If that's really what it is, there isn't much you can do except remove affected leaves and fruit and hope it only spreads slowly. However, since blight thrives in humid conditions you should probably cut down on the spraying too. I use Malathion rather stingily, it seems like what I'm applying is very unlikely to exceed the maximum daily intake. I live in a rather dry part of the county, but the ocean proximity does provide a lot of humidity at night. I would reckon it varies from about 10% to 70% over most day/nights. I'm figuring on mixing soluble fertilizer with the Malathion application. If you can't destroy a parasite, out grow it. Like I said, this is my first attempt in 50 years to grow tomatos. In May I put some Ace hybrids down, they seem to do OK, no blight, 6 oz fruits, the bugs get maybe 25% of them. In June I put some Beefmasters down, they're the ones with the blighted stems. 6 oz fruits, mostly cracked. Tasty enough. Most of the web sites say March is the time to put the seedlings out around here, and I expect that's about right. Live and learn, hey! Cracked fruit seems to be mostly blamed on uneven watering, which seems right enough to me. It's hard to avoid. I got to work 12 hours a day three consecutive days of the week, so the plants get little attention when I get home. On my days off, it seems like a good idea to try to make up for the previous inattention, and I give them more water over a longer period. For next year, I'm thinking about some kind of automatic watering system that will flood the soil every hour or two. I got a fountain pump that seems up to the job of raising 10 gallons per hour a foot or two. Got a cheapo Home Depot timer that turns on and off every half hour or whatever you set it for. Quite a bit more work to do, but conceivable. Interestingly, my best producer Ace this year I put on top of a Strawberry pot. I had never seen or heard of a Strawberry pot before, and the web site which caught my interest suggested putting a half inch thick pipe through to the bottom. I did that in spades, put a half dozen pipes down! These were perforated with 1/8" holes every other inch or two, supposedly as I gathered so water might be added to deep irrigate the plants. The other 10 or so apertures on the outside of the Pot I filled with Strawberry plants from the Loew's. The Strawberry seedlings produced a few berries and died. But the Ace tomato on top thrived. After a couple weeks, I saw the unwisdom of pouring water down the tubes; to irrigate the pot, one must soak the entirety. I removed a few, leaving only three, I guess. The Ace thrived, and continues to. I got several other Aces in other medium which thrive, but not as productively. I reckon that the remaining three tubes provide aeration to the soil and this accounts for the greater prductivitey. I've sown some of the other apertures with basil, others with peppers, it's kind of late in the year for that, but it's California! |
#17
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Tomato pesticides, anything better than Malathion?
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