Soft Rot

[Cornelius_Gotchberg]

Is it incurable, and do I harvest as yet unaffected fruit and destroy the plants, or ride it out and hope for the best?

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The Gotch

[MissS]

It happens sometimes in wet humid weather. There is really nothing you can do about it other than keeping a fan on your friut to keep them dried off. These look like perhaps a bird or a hornworm put a hole in them and the infection started there.

[bower]

Nothing worse than having to ditch a big fruit.
Honestly it has pushed me towards smaller but many-er, in a small space it's hard to tolerate the losses.
I have hucked a few after giving them BER with ferts/water/silty compost on a hot day. Not too many but.... it burns eh.

[Ken4230]

I have a lot of that this year, especially on the Karmen peppers. At first I thought it was sun scald. I put up a shade cloth and it was still happening.

Think @MissS was right, way too much rain. The rest of my peppers are fine. I just pull any thing damaged and chunk them in the liquid fertilizer barrel.

[Cornelius_Gotchberg]

I just pull any thing damaged and chunk them in the liquid fertilizer barrel.

The U.W. Extension (GO BADGERS!) Horticulture warned against keeping any detritus (https://hort.extension.wisc.edu/article ... 20material.), saying essentially "burn the remains, sweep us the ashes, and burn 'em again."

The Gotch

[MissS]

There are people all over the state having this issue. The weather has just been too wet. I found one in my garden this morning too. Hopefullly we will dry out a bit so that we can have a good harvest from some of our plants.

[Seven Bends]

I just pull any thing damaged and chunk them in the liquid fertilizer barrel.

The U.W. Extension (GO BADGERS!) Horticulture warned against keeping any detritus (https://hort.extension.wisc.edu/article ... 20material.), saying essentially "burn the remains, sweep us the ashes, and burn 'em again."

The Gotch

Yeah, I was wondering about this, especially when you mentioned possibly saving seeds from the infected fruit, or from other fruit on the same plant. Soft rot is caused by several different pathogens, so maybe that makes a difference. Some of the pathogens that cause it are basically ubiquitous in the environment, so I'm not sure why absolute destruction of the plant material would be so important -- the stuff is going to be around anyway.

We don't get it much here, though occasionally a few tomatoes will get it very late in the season. I do try to remove the rotten tomatoes and don't compost them, but sometimes they fall to the ground in an explosive, sodden, smelly mess, and I don't clean that up. It never seems to carry over to the next year.

[Ken4230]

I just pull any thing damaged and chunk them in the liquid fertilizer barrel.

The U.W. Extension (GO BADGERS!) Horticulture warned against keeping any detritus (https://hort.extension.wisc.edu/article ... 20material.), saying essentially "burn the remains, sweep us the ashes, and burn 'em again."
The Gotch

I keep a 55 gal. drum in which I put about 90% of the trimmings from my garden. I start out with about 30 gal. of water and 2 5gal. buckets of leaf litter/mold. An old man (probably one of the first permaculture guys) showed me this 20-30 year ago. The closest version I have found is called "The J-Dam Liquid Fertilizer". About the only difference is that I add a lot more leaf litter. The old man said dilute it 40 to 1 and pour directly on the soil. That what I have done for years. The hard part back then was finding a barrel with a removable top that would reseal.

I have discussed this with the UK Research Farm at Princeton. They were not really impressed but I am still using it. I have not burned plants but I have double bagged them and taken them to the dump, along with the soil.

[Seven Bends]

I just pull any thing damaged and chunk them in the liquid fertilizer barrel.

The U.W. Extension (GO BADGERS!) Horticulture warned against keeping any detritus (https://hort.extension.wisc.edu/article ... 20material.), saying essentially "burn the remains, sweep us the ashes, and burn 'em again."
The Gotch

I keep a 55 gal. drum in which I put about 90% of the trimmings from my garden. I start out with about 30 gal. of water and 2 5gal. buckets of leaf litter/mold.

Doesn't this smell ghastly?

[Cornelius_Gotchberg]

sometimes they fall to the ground in an explosive, sodden, smelly mess,

Regarding this, I have acquired knowledge and experience which will never darken not grow dim...

The Gotch

[Ken4230]

Doesn't this smell ghastly?
[/quote]

@Seven Bends You don't want to stick your down in there and take a big deep breath. It's not like a confinement hog lot in the middle of August. But It is kind of odiferous.

The hardest part is finding a strainer big enough to strain the liquid easily. I store the liquid in a painted gallon tea jar with a spout.
I honestly think it helps, my soil is alive with worms, mealybugs, centipedes and other living creatures that I have no idea what they are. I never know what I will bring up when I am planting in the spring. I have a lot of Blue Tail Lizards, don't think they are actually lizards but that's what I call them.

[karstopography]

I didn’t know soft rot on tomatoes was really a thing. Good, something else to watch out for.

[Cornelius_Gotchberg]

I didn’t know soft rot on tomatoes was really a thing. Good, something else to watch out for.

A first here, as well.

The Gotch

[Seven Bends]

Doesn't this smell ghastly?

I have a lot of Blue Tail Lizards, don't think they are actually lizards but that's what I call them.

Skinks! Probably five-lined skinks, maybe broadhead skinks. They look pretty similar and both have a bright blue tail when young. That's so cool that you have them in your garden. I only ever see them when I go hiking.

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The blue tails on the juveniles are designed to distract predators, or basically to attract predators to the tail rather than the main part of the body. Skinks (juveniles & adults) can shed their tails painlessly when grabbed by a predator, and the tail keeps wriggling around for awhile after being detached, in order to keep the predator occupied for a bit while the skink escapes. The tails grow back. This poor thing had an unfortunate encounter with something.

skink missing tail.jpg

[JayneR13]

Lizards are so cool! Horned toads do the same thing: lose the tail when an undesirable gets hold of it. I learned about this chasing them in the desert as a child. Soft rot otoh stinks just like this year’s weather. When I see it I toss the fruits. I wouldn’t try saving seed since too many pathogens can survive that way.

On the up shot, the drought seems to be over!

[FatBeeFarm]

@Ken4230 I burn baby burn!!! Burn it all. May my garden foes die screaming in the righteous cleansing flames.

Why risk propagating something bad? Leaf mold is abundant and free if you just go get it. No real need to compost bad things is there? If anything looks even slightly suspicious I burn it. I've struggled too much with blight, needle cast, anthracnose, powdery mildew, and other baddies. And I just learned here Daconil is deadly toxic to the cute leopard frogs I have everywhere so that's one less tool I have to manage disease. Now I only have copper spray, ruthless pruning and my burn pit.

Love the blue skinks!