Leaves turning yellow

Mr.Doglips · Joined: 06 Apr 2003 Posts: 6 Location: Keller

On my Tomato Plants the leaves are turning yellow. I planted them with and prepped the soil with humus, corn meal and dry molasses 4 weeks ago. I keep them watered and all was looking real good till about 2 days ago. Any ideas or suggestions?

Thanks,
Mr. Doglips

Dirtdigger · Joined: 14 Mar 2003 Posts: 15 Location: Weatherford, Texas

Take a magnifing glass turn a leaf over and look for very small spider mites. If you see these little red bugs spray with insecticidal soap evey 2-3 days for 3 times.

Dirtdigger

dragonfly · Posted: Thu May 29, 2003 2:49 pm Post subject:

In case it's not spider mites, and is a fungal problem, try a weekly foliar spray with cornmeal tea. See the pest and disease forum for a similar thread.

shawna · Joined: 08 Jun 2003 Posts: 8 Location: bardwell tx

Where can the cornmeal tea be purchased? Someone told me the yellowing leaves can also be caused by too much salt in the water. Has anyone heard of that before?

dragonfly · Posted: Mon Jun 09, 2003 5:13 pm Post subject:

Cornmeal tea can't be purchased as far as I know. I make it by soaking cornmeal in water outside in a covered bucket. It gets pretty rank smelling, so keep the lid on. I dilute it in 1-2 gallons of water (about a cup of the cornmeal tea) and spray it weekly on my tomato plants. It worked great last year, and appears to be doing the same this year.

flowerlover · Joined: 06 May 2003 Posts: 107 Location: Waxahachie,TEXAS

Dragonfly, how long do you have to soak the cornmeal tea before it is ready to use? I guess you mean regular cornmeal you buy in a grocery store? How much cornmeal to that amount of water? What kind of sprayer do you use?

dragonfly · Posted: Tue Jun 10, 2003 7:11 pm Post subject:

Take one or two cups of cornmeal (horticultural, grocery grade, or cracked corn from the feed store) and put it in a couple of gallons of water with a lid. Let it sit outside until it really smells bad. Won't take 2-3 days in this heat. Take one cup of the tea strained through cheesecloth or a pantyhose into your pressure sprayer (I use the heavy duty stainless steel variety with a brass nozzle). Put 1-2 gallons of water into the sprayer, and mist your tomato plants thoroughly. I do this once a week, usually in the early morning before the day really starts heating up. I used this treatment last year and my plants survived the Summer and produced into the Fall first frost. Production almost comes to a halt during the heat of the summer, but the plants survived, so I call that a success story.

Jim In Dallas · Posted: Tue Jun 10, 2003 8:19 pm Post subject:

Hummm....I use this method too, with good results. However, I only soak the cornmeal for about an hour, and squeze out the remnants from a nylon hose. So, I need to let it ferment longer? Just curious.

dragonfly · Posted: Tue Jun 10, 2003 9:17 pm Post subject:

I was under the impression that microorganisms from the corn were what helped with fungal diseases, but maybe I'm wrong. If soaking the corn for an hour works, then I say go ahead and do it that way. It sure would smell better. Of course, spraying fish emulsion and seaweed isn't much fun.