Clover blog

Question: "How do you deal with black fungus disease? It seems this nasty disease keeps on killing my tomatoes"

Answer:

My grandfather grew tomatoes in Poland, where black fungus was
just as much of a problem as it is for you. Often, farmers could lose
entire crops to the disease if they made a mistake.

The way he dealt with this problem was by applying some pretty
serious measures to keep everything sterile the whole time. Some of
which I talk about.

(Keep in mind, these measures help protect your tomatoes from many
diseases, not just black fungus… if you practice this you'll have healthier plants)

1. They used to STEAM the earth before using it. This was
done by pumping scolding hot steam into the green-house and into the
earth through pipes to kill all bacterial life.

2. Then, the earth would sit for 2-3 weeks so that new life could
begin to grow in it, hopefully, with any disease killed off by this
time.

3. Then they would apply the fertilizer and let it sit with the
earth for a week to let it de-acidify and allow even more micro life
to form in the earth for the tomatoes.

4. Only then, did they plant the tomato seedlings into the earth.

Now, that's just the first part of the process - afterwards,
everything was kept as sterile as possible. For instance, no
children, animals were allowed in the greenhouse, no shoes were worn
in the green-house. There was constant ventillation of the greenhouse
to keep the air from being stale.

(Okay, I agree, you should allow children in a greenhouse, just
don't let them run around licking and touching all the plants, hehe)

Also, instead of growing the tomatoes on wooden sticks or poles, he
used sterilized string or fishing string. Wood tends to absorb
moisture, rot, and can quickly create the environment for disease.

You would be amazed just how these variables change the probability
of your tomatoes catching disease :)

5. Keep in mind, the most important part here is tomato pruning, I
disagree with your friends who say it would take 10 years for it to go
away, you can still grow tomatoes without the disease.

The biggest reason your tomatos catch the "plegue" is because they
are poorly ventillated, and/or grown outdoors. In these areas where
the plegue is rampant, its the best idea to grow them in a
green-house.

If the tomatoes are properly pruned, the tomatoes will breathe
1,000% more freely, and therefor, you reduce the risk of them getting
the disease dramatically.

If they are not pruned, old air getstrapped underneath and around the "bushy", plant, the air goes
"stale", and your tomatoes grow slowly… as the temperature drops at
night, this air turns to moisture around the tomato stem… and now
you have a big wet plant with stale musty air around it, the water and
air drips/moves down the stem to the very bottom, where now there is a
perfect environment for a disease to spread it's wings and thrive.
Moist, Wet, Warm(protected from the sun by the giant canopy of
un-pruned leaves during the day)

That's my two cents on it :) hope it helps! My grandfather grew
tomatoes year after year in a place where lots of people lost their
plants to the black fungus, but to date, he didn't lose a single
tomato to the disease in his green-houses.