How to deal with tomato top rot. What is this disease, photo
Summer residents and avid gardeners often grow tomatoes. They know that in order to get a good result, you need to have information about all diseases of the culture. Therefore, the question is: "How to deal with the top rot of tomatoes?" - is quite common. This disease can affect vegetables both outdoors and in greenhouses.
Infection stain
Top rot very quickly captures most of the tomato. The disease first begins to manifest itself on the green fruit below. Then a watery spot becomes visible on the top of the tomato. It is darker than a green vegetable. Over time, the stain will change and be dry and greyish brown. It will take on a dense skin, which will crack and affect the entire fruit. Therefore, you need to know how to deal with the top rot of tomatoes. Otherwise, there will be no harvest.
The dry skin of the spot is pressed into the depth of the tomato. The disease affects the entire vegetable with mold. The tomato pulp is populated with saprophytic mushrooms. They damage the tissue, which then simply rot. Sometimes it happens that the fruits do not rot, but dry out. In some cases, no signs of the disease are visible on the tomatoes. The vegetable is damaged inside, ripens earlier than healthy fruits and falls off. Such tomatoes are not suitable for consumption. They have low taste, you cannot process and use seeds as planting material.
Conditions for the spread of the disease
Before you start growing tomatoes, you need to learn how to deal with tomato top rot. It is also advisable to understand from what conditions it can begin. What should be done in advance?
The most important cause of the disease is the violation of water equality. This is if there is a lack of moisture in the cells of the vegetable at an external high temperature. When the crop grows outdoors and in hot climates, evaporation increases. From the tomatoes, moisture will mix into the leaves, this leads to dehydration and death of the fetus. Tomato (top rot) disease is very common and is well known among gardeners. Indeed, in our country in the summer there is a lack of moisture, and the air temperature reaches 30 degrees above zero.
Before you deal with tomato apical rot, you need to find out all the causes of this disease. For example, lack of calcium and uneven watering. Therefore, to prevent rot, the culture can be sprayed with calcium nitrate. Such actions must be performed a couple of times every seven days. It is worth diluting forty to fifty grams of calcium nitrate for five liters of water.
Root dressing
The most common disease is tomato apical rot. The treatment of the culture consists in treating the plant at the stage of fruit set. If rot is not stopped, it will become a source of new infections: gray and brown rot, fungal diseases.
When brown spots appear, root top dressing should be done immediately. It is desirable that these were complex fertilizers containing phosphorus and potassium. Ash can also be added under the root. Calculation: dilute 250 grams of ash per 10 liters of liquid. Ash contains zinc and iron, sulfur and calcium, phosphorus and potassium. When planting, a fresh solution is added to the dug hole. When feeding an adult plant, add 5 grams of superphosphate to the water with ash.
Presowing processing methods
The disease most often affects tomatoes that are grown in greenhouses. Top rot of tomatoes in a greenhouse is a very common occurrence, the disease quickly begins to destroy the fruits. In the open field, the nightshade plant is also susceptible to disease. Methods for saving tomatoes must be taken in advance.
Often summer residents and gardeners buy more resistant varieties of tomatoes. This method is the safest, it is environmentally friendly and profitable. Also, hybrid varieties are very resistant to top rot. For example: Bolshevik F1 and Glombe master F1, Benito F1 and Pharaoh F1, Rotor F1 and the Grand Canyon and many others.
After the final harvest, you need to carefully dig up the site. Collect the roots of affected tomatoes. Then carry out deep plowing again. For the next season, do not plant tomatoes in this place, this can be done only after three years.
Disinfection of seeds
Top rot of tomatoes in a greenhouse is very common. Experienced gardeners take measures in advance to prevent it.
You can soak them in a solution of one percent potassium permanganate or twenty percent hydrochloric acid three months before sowing the seeds. This will disinfect the planting material. The prepared seeds are placed in cheesecloth and tied. Then they put it in a container and fill it with a solution. You need to hold the planting material in the liquid for about half an hour. In this case, the solution should fill the seeds completely. Then the planting material is washed in water for 15 minutes and allowed to dry.
Succinic acid solution
Almost all measures to combat top rot of tomatoes consist in pretreating the seeds. After all, you need to take care of a healthy plant by taking care of the planting material.
This approach increases the percentage of plant resistance to infectious diseases. It can be not only the top rot of tomatoes. Photos of the infection on tomatoes show how it affects the entire fetus. So, let's figure out in what solution you can still soak the seeds. Dissolve 17 milliliters of succinic acid in one liter of water. You can also use 1% zinc sulfate solution. It is necessary to keep the seeds in liquid for at least a day. This method will not only make the plant more resistant to infectious diseases, but also accelerate the process of fruiting and ripening of the tomato itself.