Trent's 2014 Grow Log - COLD COLD COLD

TrentL · Jun 4, 2014

Thunderstorm in full swing; big lightning crash woke me up. So I went outside (in my bare feet) and checked the garden (in the pouring rain).

I have about 5" of standing water in the trenches between my rows, but otherwise, all looks well.

Except for the one tomato plant that was wilted (posted pics the other day). It's 100% wilted now... despite having been watered yesterday and drenched tonight. No signs of discoloration on the leaves... it's just.. dying?? For some reason?

Never seen anything like it.

EDIT: Unless it's something killing the stalk... going back out in the rain to check.
Well I'm soaking wet now lol.

The stalk of the 'mater is fine. So are the roots, dug through the mud with my fingers to check them, felt fine, tons of them (didn't pull them up to examine them).

Leaves look great and healthy. But there's too many flower buds. I cut off a branch and brought it in, there's over 100 buds forming on ONE 6" branch.

Looks like another herbicide casualty. I'll prune it back more and hope for the best, but that plant looks to be toast.

Grr.

Jeff H · Jun 4, 2014

Food and dried peppers look great. I could use some pizza right about now.

We get that storm later today. Hope all your plants survive the onslaught. I just turned off the irrigation system the other day. With all the rain, I won't need to add any water for days.

Sorry to hear about the tomato casualty. Looks like your keeping on top of the peppers, maybe you can trim the tomato back and save it too. Determinate?

TrentL · Jun 4, 2014

That tomato is determinate, and there's going to be no saving it. Every single leaf is wilted. No discoloration or anything, nice and green, but it looks like the roots have been cut off from water or nutrients or both.

Will grab a pic in a bit.
Ok.. it's bacterial or viral. Shit.

Selective wilting of specific branches on this one:

... While the one next to it is fully wilted.

So I dug it up.

Discoloration on the stem;

So I cut the root open below the soil line and found this:

That's a LOT of vascular death. Gotta be a virus, fungus, or bacteria... question is, which one, and can it get in to my peppers????? It's already affecting two tomatoes in the group of 11.

The offending plant has been removed but one more has got to go (which sucks, since it's my biggest, healthiest one... or was until the day before yesterday...)

Whatever it is.. it works damn fast. Three days ago these were all fine.

Pulling some likely candidates from the list; verticulum and fusarium don't work this fast. "PECTOBACTERIUM CAROTOVORUM" (a bacterial root rot) does work this fast and can kill tomato plants in 3 days.

Any other ideas?

Should I nuke the other tomato plant showing symptoms?

cypresshill1973 · Jun 4, 2014

TRENT: Your plant is sick with a fungus (fosarium) Search for information about treatments. Try to be on time to control in other plants.

Very good pictures for their crops!!
Could make a horizontal cut the stem with a sharp knife??

We need to see the condition of the inside of the stem to be 100% sure.

maximumcapsicum · Jun 4, 2014

I guess like isn't the right sentiment here. Sorry to hear about the tomato... hopefully you can nip it in the bud soon. Good luck Trent!

Jeff H · Jun 4, 2014

cypresshill1973 said:
TRENT: Your plant is sick with a fungus (fosarium) Search for information about treatments. Try to be on time to control in other plants.

Very good pictures for their crops!!

Could make a horizontal cut the stem with a sharp knife??

We need to see the condition of the inside of the stem to be 100% sure.

Got me curious so I did a bit of searching and found this: http://ohioline.osu.edu/hyg-fact/3000/3122.html
Be careful. The OSU article says tomatoes may recover but infected peppers usually die.

This would also explain some of my young peppers that inexplicably died in the grow room. Looking good one day and wilted and collapsed the next. Lost all of my bacctums that way earlier this year.

cypresshill1973 · Jun 4, 2014

The Fosarium is a pathogen that affects all solanaceous.... The peppers are not exempt to fosarium, only the symptoms are similar, but equally dangerous.

Trent, remembering, perhaps have a fosarium attack instead of 2,4-D herbicide,

I recommend taking some specimens and take them to any laboratory agronomist or university for analysis.

Strange is that the plants or herbs around (and trees) are not affected by the fall of a herbicide. And only solanaceous are affected.

I hope you have understood my message through google translator.

TrentL · Jun 5, 2014

Nah the abnormal growth is definitely 2,4-D (or similar growth stimulant). I talked to a neighbor across the street today who drives a truck all day delivering the crap to fields. The farmers around here are all growing a hybrid of corn that's resistant to 2,4-D (or whatever growth stimulant that is similar to it), and all of the fields in the area are getting sprayed with it. He says "Makes the weeds grow like crazy, then they turn yeller and fall right on over!"

(Sigh)

The infection was probably introduced to me cutting off the tomato branches nearest the soil line when I planted them horizontally. I didn't want half-branches sticking out of the soil and the buggers wouldn't stay buried, so I nipped them off. That gave a dirt-level contact patch with a fresh wound for stuff to get in on. I didn't do this with ALL tomatoes I planted - only the first four or five. Two of those are showing symptoms, the rest are not.

Unfortunately I probably caused this by giving the nasties that are growing in it, the path to get in to the plant, by cutting off those branches.

TrentL · Jun 5, 2014

I don't think it's Fosarium. The stem is green through & through on several test slices I made. No discoloration on the cross section at any point on the stem.

It's *only* in the core of the roots from soil level to 2-3" down. The rest of the root mass looks fine.

TrentL · Jun 5, 2014

The top of that Butch T I keep pruning back... This was last pruned back 4 or 5 days ago? Incredible amounts of forking and buds again. Most of the other overwinters are slowing down.

A spare Bhut Jolokia that I potted up to 5 gallon. it was affected by the herbicide. But unlike the plants in the ground, I didn't top or prune any of those. I'm letting them grow out for comparison.

Some of those are faring far worse; this habanero plant got a BIG whiff of that crap.

Oddly the Annuums were relatively unaffected by it - this Black Jalapeno is growing strong and podding up.

The Cumari I've been posting pictures of is forking and branching like crazy since it was topped & pruned.

And here's a Goats Weed that I topped and pruned last week. It wasn't showing too much signs of damage - just some curled leaves... but look at it take off now!!!

Here's an overwintered Habanero that's doing fantastic now. it seemed to be spared the herbicide damage - along with the other four plants near it - which means that the cloud of 'crud' blew in sometime after I'd positioned my overwinters, but before I'd planted anything. The overwinters I had in the west side of the garden got hit BAD; the ones on the east side, not so much.

Another overwinter (next to that Hab) which was unaffected. This is a Carolina Reaper; dodged a bullet there.

The spares were moved off to the side of the garage in the uncut undergrowth... they get about 8 hours of direct sun here, plus I was hoping some beneficial insects would move in and cleanse them of aphids.

I can't confirm one way or the other but it *appears* that the root stimulant I added to the ones in the ground helped "reign in" the damage caused by herbicide.

They're still branching and growing like crazy but they've tapered off quite a lot.

Devv · Jun 5, 2014

I've had a few tomato plants I had to pull, they're planted in the same spot I had issues with 2 seasons ago. Peppers were there last season and did great. Corn is going there for a few seasons. The plants the first time around looked great and one day they looked like they needed water, from there they just wilted. At ground level they had a white ring around the trunk, an indication of Southern Blight. The ones this year just yellowed and stopped growing. I pulled the as I left the garden for the day so I would not contaminate any other plants.

Are you rotating your crops? I try but need to finish the north side of the garden. My goal is to use one side per season down the road.

The rest of your plants are looking great! Glad you have spares!

TrentL · Jun 5, 2014

Ok guys, need help identifying this.

what is this red tube-like fungus crap growing out of the middle of my phlox? I found 5 of these scattered around growing out of the ground near my garage door. Appears to be dying.

Devv said:
I've had a few tomato plants I had to pull, they're planted in the same spot I had issues with 2 seasons ago. Peppers were there last season and did great. Corn is going there for a few seasons. The plants the first time around looked great and one day they looked like they needed water, from there they just wilted. At ground level they had a white ring around the trunk, an indication of Southern Blight. The ones this year just yellowed and stopped growing. I pulled the as I left the garden for the day so I would not contaminate any other plants.

Are you rotating your crops? I try but need to finish the north side of the garden. My goal is to use one side per season down the road.

The rest of your plants are looking great! Glad you have spares!

Yes last year I had Late Blight on my tomatoes, so I rotated out. Where these tomatoes are planted was lawn last year.

On the fungus thing I found today...

Closest thing I could find on that fungus that popped up is "Mutinus caninus"

Named such because it looks like a dogs .. umm.. dongle???
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutinus_caninus

Ooh! Cukes flowering.

And a whole HOST of soldier beetles moved in to those spares through the garden. GOOD BYE APHIDS!!!!! SUCKS TO BE YOU!

There were dozens of them swarming over the 5" spares on the north side of the garage this evening!!!

millworkman · Jun 5, 2014

Elegant Stinkhorn fungus? I am interested in figuring out if we can use this 2,4-d for growing purposes, maybe a small dose or something.

TrentL · Jun 5, 2014

millworkman said:
Elegant Stinkhorn fungus? I am interested in figuring out if we can use this 2,4-d for growing purposes, maybe a small dose or something.

I finally tracked down a diagnosis on that fungus. It's called mutinus caninus (literal translation of the Latin is "Dog-Like Penis"). It's in the Phallus family. Those botanists... lol.

Anyway I uncovered the fungus (was growing up through my phlox), and found two more egg sacks about to get an "erection".

So I set up the game camera on time lapse mode in 5 minute intervals, starting at 6 AM through 9 PM tomorrow I'll see if I can catch one of those egg sacks getting a boner.

Better side shot.

maximumcapsicum · Jun 5, 2014

Haha, bye bye aphids! Looks like everything is bouncing back Trent!

millworkman · Jun 5, 2014

HAHA, thats awesome and can't wait to see the time lapse.

TrentL · Jun 5, 2014

maximumcapsicum said:
Haha, bye bye aphids! Looks like everything is bouncing back Trent!

Yeah! Hopefully I can change the thread title soon to "OMFG THE BURN THE BURN"
Millworkman; regarding 2,4-D as a growing agent... it don't know how it could be moderated to precise enough doses. SOME of the plants are doing fantastic because of it.. some are dying.

On the tomato that I pulled out of the ground and cut apart....

Remember how I said I dug a trench and planted the tomatoes sideways?

It occurred to me today that those early ones I planted had a pretty sharp 90 degree turn in the stalk because of this.... right where the root rot I found was.

I'm wondering if the WEIGHT of the tomato plant sitting on top of the 90 degree bend, compressed that area and killed it off inside.

I dug a sloped trench on most of the others and didn't bend the stalk nearly as sharply, and they seem to be doing just fine.

TrentL · Jun 5, 2014

Tonight went out to the garden and caught me some Nightcrawlers with my oldest daughter so we can go fishing this weekend.

"Why can't we go to the store and buy them Dad?"

"Shut up and hold the bucket kid, I'm trying to teach you something here."

kgetpeppers · Jun 6, 2014

I went out last storm at got about 150 worms

thats like a 20$ savings in less than hours work

TrentL · Jun 6, 2014

Cayenne pods doing well

Marley surveying his garden.

Herbicide damaged 7-Pot is growing flowers now. More than it SHOULD, but I'm not going to complain if they make it.

Carolina Reaper overwinter putting on some flower buds too!

Ladybug larva on one of the overwinters. Between the hundreds of soldier beetles that moved in, and the lady beetles, those damn aphids will be exterminated soon enough.