Fungicide Treatment for Tomatoes

Many of us feel proud to have our own garden in our backyard with a variety of plants, ornamental or otherwise. Many plants do not require too much attention however, only a few mandatory steps need to be taken to have them grow healthy; whereas a few plants demand a lot of attention. One such plant which needs your care is the tomato plant.

This plant produces juicy fruits and thus becomes more susceptible to diseases caused by fungi. The common fungal diseases result in rotting of the fruit or roots and spotting on leaves, which makes the plant look awful, and this calls for quick measures. However, it is better to prevent these from happening by using homemade or ready-made fungicides

Fungal diseases are the most common problems that mainly affect the plant during or on the onset of rainy season, mainly because fungus prefer moisture for optimum growth. When talking about the fungicide treatment, there are several options that would come to your rescue so let us elaborate on each of them.

We always look for and prefer natural remedies, as they do not cause any side effects, yet work efficiently against all the fungal diseases, like black spots, on tomatoes. So, here is a list of some homemade fungicides for tomatoes.

• First option is the use of cornmeal. You either soak it in water for a few hours and then spray the resultant mixture on the entire plant, or you could mix dry cornmeal granules in the soil.
• Take orange and lemon rinds, mix them with water, and then spray the extract on the entire plant. The smell acts as a repellent and protects the plant well from fungus.

• Third option is to mix vinegar with water and spray it onto the entire plant again.
• If you don't have anything handy, you could take a mixture of baking soda and water, and spray it on the plant. Do not use soap or dishwasher detergents, since they might irritate the plant.

An option that would work apart from the ones given earlier is the preparation of organic fungicide at home. For this, take 2 ½ tablespoons of vegetable oil, add 1 tablespoon baking soda to it, and mix in 1 gallon of water.

Shake the mixture well, and spray it on the entire plant, mainly on the leaves. This organic fungicide works excellently against leaf spot diseases. But as expected, you need to continue spraying the mixture every alternate day to get positive results.

Apart from these natural preventive measures, there are a number of commercial brands that would help you in case of severe damage on your tomatoes. Most of these are copper fungicides, and generally contain mancozeb as the active ingredient.

The brands that sell this fungicide are GreenCure, Bonide, Ortho Daconil, Fertilome Broad Spectrum Liquid Fungicide, HiYield Daconil, Rigo Lawn, Serenade, Spilgard, MycoStop, Contants, and Garden Fungicide. These have a fair amount of copper in them. This can cause wilting of leaves when used in excess amounts, so the use should always be restrictive.

This was all about fungicide treatment for tomatoes. You could also make tomato cages to protect the plants from environmental damage. The best way to keep fungal diseases from spoiling your tomato species is by making sure you take the proper precaution beforehand.

It includes checking the soil texture routinely, watering the plants regularly, giving them appropriate sunshine, pruning them whenever required, using fertilizers and basically taking good care of the little tomato plants to be able to see them bear fruit.