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Tomatoes are a vegetable that almost everyone loves. Red, crimson, pink, yellow and white, black, brown and even green - but ripe! These berries are begging to be tasted. In order for the tomatoes to grow tasty and ripen on the bush, they need a lot of sun and warmth. In the south, everything is very simple - they sowed it into the ground, and then just take care of it. But in the middle lane, and even more so - to the north, this will not work.
The number of varieties that can be grown in a seedless way is small, and they do not have time to completely give up the entire possible harvest for our short and not very warm summer. So you have to grow seedlings, groom and cherish them, water, feed, dive. Usually, feeding with a complete soluble complex mineral fertilizer is practiced. But it does not contain one of the essential elements for tomatoes - iodine.
In this case, only one drop of iodine is used for two liters of water. Each plant is watered with a small amount of this solution. After such feeding, the plants become stronger, and the flower clusters formed in the future become more branched.
It seemed that not long ago the seedlings were tiny, but the stable spring warmth had already come and it was time for the seedlings to move to the dacha. The conditions for all gardeners are different - someone has a solid greenhouse under polycarbonate, and someone has a small greenhouse under the film. Many people plant seedlings directly in the ground, hoping that hardy varieties will adapt to any conditions. But wherever tomatoes grow, they equally require care and proper care. Every gardener can do a lot for his favorite tomatoes: water, feed, remove stepchildren on time, but he is not in his power to provide his wards with optimal weather. Our unpredictable summer is much more surprising: either endless rain or a sharp cold snap. It is not easy for such a heat-loving culture as tomatoes in extreme conditions. Plants have a drop in immunity. This means that illness is not far off.
When signs appear on plants diseases, it will be much more difficult to deal with them.
Ways to fight tomato diseases
Disease prevention should go in two ways.
- Strengthening plant immunity.
- Fight against possible pathogens in order to prevent not only their spread, but even their appearance.
Strengthening plant immunity
It is possible to strengthen the immunity of plants with the help of immunostimulants. There are a number of drugs that not only increase the resistance of plants, but also significantly increase the yield, improve its quality. One of these substances is immunocytophyte.
This is a domestic drug. Before allowing the use of immunocytophyte, its harmlessness and effect on plants were tested on tomatoes for several years. Tests were carried out by the Department of Phytopathology of S. Vavilov. Their result was a conclusion about complete safety not only for humans, but also for animals and even insects.And this is understandable - the preparation contains the optimal combination of substances beneficial to plants and harmless to humans: arachidonic acid, which is not only found in some vegetable oils, but is also added to breast milk substitute mixtures, antioxidants - substances that do not need recommendations, a number of esters based on ethyl alcohol and some high molecular weight fatty acids. The main constituent of immunocytophyte is ordinary urea, a well-known nitrogen fertilizer. But the effective action of the drug is due not only to these components. Immunocytophyte contains a substance that is the result of the vital activity of a number of pathogenic microorganisms for plants. In small doses, it acts on them in the same way as a vaccination against a disease on a person, developing the ability to resist these diseases in the future.
This drug is especially effective in creating immunity to late blight - the most dangerous disease.
Signs and causes of late blight
Late blight is caused by phytopathogenic fungal microorganisms. Plants from the Solanaceae family and even strawberries are susceptible to it, about forty plant species in total. But if in potatoes, when signs of disease appear on the leaves, the tubers may not have time to be amazed before harvesting, then on tomatoes late blight often takes on a hurricane character and can destroy the entire crop in just a few days. A characteristic sign of the disease is the appearance of brown spots first on the stems, then on the leaves, and then on the fruits of the plants. The emergence and rapid spread of the disease is facilitated by close planting of potatoes to tomatoes, high humidity of both soil and air, non-observance of crop rotation, overcrowding of plants, improper watering, abuse of nitrogen fertilizers.
In order to prevent the appearance of the causative agent of the disease on plants, different methods of processing tomatoes can be used. One of the fairly simple, but, nevertheless, quite effective - spraying tomatoes with iodine. One of the big advantages of such processing is harmlessness to humans. There is no need to wait three weeks after processing to taste ripe tomatoes.
The benefits of iodine for tomatoes
Iodine in small doses is necessary for all plants. Most of them lack the amount of this element that is present in the soil. But it is not enough for tomatoes. Outwardly, iodine deficiency on the plant has almost no effect, and the gardener may not even guess that the plants lack it. But the lack of this element can lead to a slowdown in metabolic processes, in particular, the degree of nitrogen assimilation worsens, the growth of the plant itself and the ripening of fruits are inhibited. Iodine belongs to micronutrient fertilizers, therefore, its norms for feeding are small.
Root dressing with solutions containing iodine
Top dressing with this element can be combined with the introduction of other nutrients in liquid form by adding to the nutrient solution from three to ten drops of 5% iodine tincture for every ten liters. The number of drops grows as the tomatoes themselves grow. This is a root top dressing. It is held no more than once every fifteen days. Up to four such dressings can be carried out during the garden season. For each square meter, five liters of solution are consumed. Water the plants at the root, wetting the soil around them. With such processed tomato iodine destroys pathogenic fungi on the soil surface.
Combining foliar dressing with iodine with late blight treatment
Good for the development of tomatoes foliar feeding with iodine... It is better to spend them on the growing moon, when the aerial part of the plant absorbs nutrients as much as possible.Spraying tomatoes with iodine not only provides additional nutrition to plants, it is an excellent prevention of late blight. The best effect is obtained when milk or whey is added to the iodine solution, which is also a good remedy for this disease.
Working solution proportions:
- whey or milk, preferably not pasteurized, one liter;
- iodine - fifteen drops;
- water - four liters.
Spraying with serum only without iodine addition is possible. It is bred in a one-to-one ratio.
It is desirable that there be no rain for several days after treatment. Iodine foliar prophylaxis of late blight can be carried out no more than once every fifteen days. But the treatment with a solution of milk or milk whey is carried out as needed, at least every day. It does not harm the plants, while providing them with additional nutrition and even improving their growth. The milky film is unstable as it is washed off by rain.
Processing tomatoes with iodine in the greenhouse and on the street
Foliar processing is necessary, starting a couple of weeks after planting and ending at the end of August. By this time determinant tomatoesgrown outdoors are already finishing their growing season. Spraying tomatoes iodine in the greenhouse and in the open field is carried out in different ways. There is no natural precipitation in the greenhouse, all moisture is brought there only by gardeners. As a result, the solution remains on the plant after treatment. In the greenhouse for tomatoes slightly less moisture always comes in than in the open air, so nutrients are washed out into the lower soil layers less intensively.
But foliar dressing in the greenhouse should be carried out in September. Indeterminate tomatoes in the greenhouse grow and bear fruit until the frost, and the weather in September is already cool, which increases the risk of late blight.
But it is better not to be limited to this and additionally carry out feeding and processing according to all the rules. On the basis of iodine and whey, there is another recipe that allows you to effectively fight late blight on tomatoes, while feeding the plants. See this video for more details.
Phytophthora is a dangerous disease, but it is quite possible to fight it successfully, or even better, simply not to allow it to your site. A good help in this will be preventive spraying of tomatoes with iodine.
