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Every gardener dreams of growing a rich crop of organic tomatoes on his plot. Unfortunately, it is not always possible to avoid the use of chemicals for feeding, treating plants from diseases and pests. The range of chemical protection products for tomatoes is growing every year. Among them are many copper-containing preparations.
Many vegetable growers with extensive experience in growing tomatoes in open and protected ground prefer the treatment of tomatoes with copper sulphate from late blight. These are necessary measures, especially if the tomatoes are grown in a greenhouse. It’s no secret that the humidity of the air is difficult to regulate, therefore, for the reproduction of phytophthora, there is expanse here.
What is copper sulfate
Copper sulfate is a substance of inorganic origin. In chemistry, it is called copper sulfate salt. If you open the package with the substance, you can see blue crystals. Dissolving in water, they paint it in a sky-blue color.
You can buy copper sulfate in specialized or hardware stores. Packaging can be plastic or in a bottle. Packing from 100 grams to 500. The substance should be stored in a dry, dark room. Otherwise, it will lose its properties.
It is widely used in agricultural technology for growing vegetables and fruits in small household plots and large agricultural enterprises, both as a fertilizer and as a means of treating premises, soil and plants from various pests and diseases.
Dissolved crystals have a fungicidal, insecticidal and antiseptic effect. In addition, copper is necessary for the development of plants as a fertilizer.
Infections, including late blight, most often affect plants with reduced immunity. Tomatoes will not give the desired harvest, and the taste of the fruit will decrease.
In what cases resort to copper sulfate
In no case should you treat tomatoes with copper sulfate without assessing the condition of the soil and plants.
It often happens that the soil on the site contains a minimum amount of humus or there is too much sand in it. Plants do not receive the necessary nutrition, weaken, cannot resist diseases and pests.
If the purpose of processing tomatoes is to increase soil fertility, then dry copper sulphate is mixed with the soil before digging. It is best to perform such work annually in the fall. One gram of crystalline substance is enough for one square meter.
Experienced vegetable growers do not so often resort to the use of copper sulfate to treat tomatoes from late blight. After all, they competently use crop rotation, plant green manure on the site.
A blue solution of copper is used for spraying when foliar top dressing of tomatoes. Copper starvation can be identified by whitish spots on the tops, weak growth of shoots or their death. Such processing of tomatoes with copper sulphate is carried out in early July. One gram of blue crystals is dissolved in a ten-liter bucket.
If you neglect the instructions and add more copper sulfate, you can burn the plants. The leaves will turn black, and the tomatoes themselves will either die or their growth will slow down significantly. When processing tomatoes with a solution of copper sulphate of a lower concentration, you will not get the expected result.
Rules of breeding
Before you start processing tomatoes with copper sulfate, you need to carefully read the instructions. From this substance, compositions with different percentages of vitriol can be prepared. To prepare the mother liquor, take 100 grams of blue crystals and one liter of warm water. After dissolution of copper, the volume of liquid is adjusted to 10 liters. This will be a 1% copper sulfate solution. To get 2%, you need 200 grams per 10 liters of water, and so on.
Most often, Bordeaux mixture is prepared for processing tomatoes. And now about how to dilute copper sulfate for processing tomatoes.
Step by step recommendations:
- For breeding, it is better to use plastic dishes. First, a XNUMX-gram package of vitriol is dissolved in a small amount of warm water. When the blue crystals are completely dissolved, the amount of water is adjusted to five liters.
- In another plastic bucket you need to put 150-200 grams of lime and add 5 liters of water. It turns out a white liquid, resembling milk. The mixture must be mixed well.
- Pour a blue solution of copper sulfate into the milk of lime in a thin stream.
Be careful: it is copper sulfate into lime, and not vice versa.
- The solution must be constantly stirred. The result is a cloudy slurry.
How to prepare Bordeaux mixture:
You can check the acidity of the resulting solution using an ordinary metal nail. It is dipped into the liquid for 3 minutes.
If the copper has not settled on it (there are no rusty spots), then the solution is not too acidic, just what you need.
The resulting XNUMX% solution of Bordeaux liquid is treated with tomatoes from late blight. The preparation of the Bordeaux mixture does not take much time.
But you can not store the solution, it quickly loses its properties. It should be used within 5-9 hours.
After processing, an impermeable film is formed on the tops of tomatoes. At first, she does not let in sunlight. But then the film disappears, and the danger of the spread of phytophthora decreases.
Features of processing tomatoes from phytophthora
Copper sulfate is an excellent remedy for the destruction of late blight spores on tomatoes. There are other copper-containing preparations that can be purchased ready-made in the store. For example, Zineb, Bordeaux mixture.
Copper itself is a heavy metal. When ingested, a person in its pure form can cause severe poisoning. As for copper sulfate, plants do not absorb it, which means that the fruits are safe. A solution of vitriol, falling on foliage, stems, fruits, remains on their surface. Before use, tomatoes should be washed well.
Process tomatoes from phytophthora with copper sulfate three times during the growing season. Not only when the disease begins to progress, but as a preventive measure. Many gardeners with experience in growing tomatoes have become convinced of the benefits of vitriol in practice. They believe that this is one of the best means to harmlessly deal with spores of fungal diseases.
Prevention is important
According to gardeners, there is no need to wait for the start of the epidemic. Any disease is easier to prevent than to cure. The focus of late blight does not have to be on your site. Disputes can get from shoes, clothes. Moreover, they are easily carried by the wind from the neighboring garden.
The first treatment of tomatoes in the ground with copper sulphate from phytophthora is essentially preventive. And if you notice small spots on the leaves or shoots of tomatoes, as they say, God himself ordered to do the processing. Moreover, it is not always possible to use crop rotation due to small plots of land.
The first stage of the struggle
You need to start processing tomatoes before sowing tomato seeds for seedlings. A solution of copper sulfate is treated with containers for sowing seeds, soil. For this, a 3% solution of copper sulfate is prepared. This preventive measure is aimed at preventing the disease. In addition to late blight spores, black leg pathogens also die. This means that the seedlings will be protected at first.
The second stage
When 2-3 true leaves appear on the plants, the time comes for picking. As a rule, new seedling containers and soil will be required. If the cups are new and the soil is purchased from a store, you can not process them.
But most often, vegetable growers use soil mixtures prepared by their own hands. Plastic cups, as a rule, are also not thrown away after last year’s plantings, they are reused. Despite the fact that after planting the seedlings, the containers are washed, late blight spores can settle on them over the summer.
24 hours before picking tomatoes, containers and soil must be treated with a solution of copper sulfate to protect seedlings from possible infection with late blight. But the concentration of copper sulfate solution should be one percent. The fact is that the seedlings still have very delicate root hairs, they can suffer from a strong solution. Tomatoes may not die, but they will slow down growth until they grow a root system.
The third stage
Regardless of whether you hosted phytophthora on your site last year or not, preventive measures still need to be taken. It will also require a third root treatment of tomatoes from phytophthora before planting seedlings in open ground or a greenhouse. Wells are prepared per day and filled with a one percent solution of copper sulphate. Such a concentration will be enough, because before that, the tomatoes had already been rooted twice.
A lot of blue liquid will be required, because one liter of copper sulfate must be poured into each well to prevent late blight. The solution is prepared immediately before processing.
After the wells have been filled with a solution of copper sulfate, we fill them with soil, add compost or humus and leave it in this form until the next day. After 24 hours, tomatoes can be planted in the treated wells. The agrotechnics of work from the cultivation of the land with vitriol does not change.
Root treatments of tomatoes from late blight with copper sulphate end there. But foliar processing, it is necessary to carry out in order to consolidate the defenses of plants. It is timed to coincide with the appearance of the first ovaries. At this time, late blight begins to activate, therefore, protection of green stems and leaves from the penetration of spores of the disease is required.
For spraying, a weak concentration of Bordeaux liquid is used, approximately 0,1-0,2%. A stronger solution will act aggressively. Instead of the desired protective film, burns may form on the leaves. The tissues will begin to die off, the plants will have to spend their energy on healing, and not on flowering, fruit set. Naturally, the yield of your beds will drop dramatically.
Greenhouse treatment with copper sulphate
Copper sulfate can be used to treat tomatoes from phytophthora fearlessly, because they do not form toxic compounds. Copper ions are present in the soil in small quantities, freely combine with water. Excess copper in the soil is also not allowed. Therefore, the treatment of soil with a solution of copper sulfate must be approached with caution. As we have already noted, the land in the beds and in the greenhouse should be processed no more than once every five years.
Spring-cleaning
If we limit ourselves to the root and foliar treatment of tomato seedlings with a solution of copper sulfate, it is not always possible to avoid an outbreak of late blight. The fact is that the spores of a fungal disease of plants are very tenacious. They calmly tolerate any frost both in the open field and in the greenhouse. In closed ground, spores have more places to hide: any cracks, cracks on the frame of the greenhouse and in wooden beds. Therefore, a general cleaning is required.
Preparation for planting tomatoes in the spring should begin in the fall. If the greenhouse is standard made of polycarbonate, after harvesting, removing the stems and tops of tomatoes from the site, it is necessary to thoroughly wash the entire surface with hot water with the addition of any detergents. Using a brush, clean the cracks, joints: it is in them that the spores of the fungus can hide.
If the frame of the greenhouse is made of wooden planks and the frames are glass, we first carry out the same general cleaning. Some vegetable growers use a sulfur checker for processing. In this case, you can not enter the greenhouse for three days.
After that, you need to steam the greenhouse with boiling water. There are different options. You can spill the surface and frame with a spray bottle, or put tanks of boiling water and close the greenhouse for a few hours. Only after the preparation has been carried out, it is possible to start processing the greenhouse from phytophthora with copper sulphate.
If for some reason they didn’t do a thorough cleaning in the greenhouse in the fall, it’s okay. It can be done in the spring a month before planting tomatoes.
Processing rules
Surface treatment of the greenhouse with copper sulphate is especially necessary if there are a lot of pests in it. In other cases, this is a preventive measure. Before spraying the copper sulfate solution, the greenhouse and soil are treated with bleach for four hours. Up to 600 grams are added to a ten-liter bucket.
After that, start spraying. To treat the surface of the greenhouse, 2% Bordeaux mixture is prepared. This treatment can be carried out in autumn and spring.
How can you use a solution of copper sulfate:
How to process the soil
No one will dispute the fact that it is in the soil that pests, nematodes and disease spores are located. Therefore tillage is necessary. It is also performed in the fall. You can treat heavily contaminated soil with formalin solution (40%). You can’t enter the greenhouse for three days, then you need to ventilate for a day. For spraying the greenhouse, a one percent solution of Bordeaux liquid is prepared. If the treatment is carried out in the spring, then a month before the plants are placed in the greenhouse.
To destroy not only late blight, but also powdery mildew, bacteriosis, tomato spotting, calcium hydroxide is added to the Bordeaux mixture.
For cultivating the land in a conventional garden bed, the composition of the copper sulfate solution is prepared identically.
Safety regulations
Since copper sulfate is a chemical substance, safety rules must be observed when working with it.
Let’s talk about it:
- When breeding copper sulphate for processing tomatoes, use any utensils other than metal.
- The finished solution is not subject to long-term storage. Already after nine hours, the efficiency drops sharply, and after 24 hours it is equal to zero.
- During the processing of tomatoes with a solution of copper sulphate from late blight, remove the animals.
- For spraying tomatoes, earth, the surface of the greenhouse, it is better to use special sprayers.
- When working with the drug, use at least rubber gloves. Do not interfere with glasses and respiratory protection.
- Wash hands, face, and other exposed parts of the body with warm water and soap after work.
- Keep copper sulfate sachets out of the reach of children and animals.
Conclusion
If you want healthy tomatoes to grow in your greenhouse or in the open field and give a large harvest of tasty healthy fruits, do not forget about the treatment of plants, the surface of the greenhouse and the soil to destroy phytophthora.
As a rule, vegetable growers use solutions containing copper sulphate for this purpose. This is an excellent assistant in feeding and processing tomatoes from late blight and other fungal diseases. But since it is a chemical, care must be taken when using it.
We must not forget about the dosage. The preparation of a solution of copper sulfate, Bordeaux or Burgundy liquid is unacceptable by eye. An overdose will adversely affect the condition of the tomatoes. A large amount of copper is also unacceptable for the soil.