When a gardener chooses to grow a plant, then he or she must be aware on the ways to care the plants, including the diseases that may infest the plants. Gardeners can control and avoid diseases but they cannot control the weather, therefore gardeners must know perfectly if the chosen plant is suitable for their garden. If the chosen plant to be the tomatoes, then he or she needs to learn about the tomato diseases when he or she wants to have a great harvest. After all, being able to grow and harvest fresh tomatoes would bring so much joy to the kitchen. Tomatoes are among the most used fruit in the kitchen because they can complete so many dishes.
So, let us start with the problems that may infest tomatoes:
Early Blight
The problem can infest almost all areas of the tomatoes such as the stems, foliage and fruits. There will be dark spots developing. These spots will start on the older leaves then to the other parts before they turn yellow. To control this problem, the gardener must clean the whole infected areas and spray everything with copper sprays in order to diminish any development possibilities.
Figure5
Gray Leaf Spot
Like the name, Gray Leaf Spot only affects the leaves. It starts from the oldest leaves then continue its way to the younger ones. The early symptoms would be dark spots at the surfaces of the leaves, both top to bottom. In order to avoid this problem, a gardener can choose tomato varieties that are resistant to gray leaf spot.
Late Blight
Like early blight, the late blight infected almost all parts of the tomato plant. Tomatoes love sun and warmth and without them, this is one of the problems that may arise. The symptoms include the irregularly shaped spots of gray on the leaves.
Septoria Leaf Spot
Septoria Leaf Spot is quite similar to late blight. The difference would be that the septoria spots look like papery patches with tiny dark specks in them. Use the copper sprays and Serenade to halt the spreading of the problem.
Southern Blight
Unlike the other diseases, this disease starts with white mold on the soil line. Afterwards, there will be dark and round spots on the lower stems. They infect the stem first and not the leaves. The stems, both the inner and other part, will start to be discolored.
