I think I may have burned my tomatoes by spraying them with a combination of oil and sulfur (didn't read you're not supposed to mix them until after I did it!), but I'm not sure if that's the problem or not. New growth only looks "shoestring" like... what's often described as a characteristic of cucumber mosaic virus except that the leaves don't appear to be "mottled". The rest of the plant looks fine. It's affecting all of my tomatoes (I sprayed them all), even one that's on the other end of the garden from the rest. Help!

Gee, what pests do you have that you sprayed both those things??? Never spray both together (and this heat wave all across the country is not good for either spray, at least my directions say don't spray above 90 degrees). And, once upon a time I read to NOT use both those together (I think the oil somehow intensifies the way the sulphur acts, and it penetrates into the leaves of the plant). Oil is good for suffocation, can't breath thru oil (insects breathe thru their bodies, don't have noses set up like we do), so the oil kinda makes it very difficult...it also smothers the eggs and larvae. Now sulphur is a chemical, naturally occuring, yes, and it's used for fungus (do your tomatoes already have fungus???). I only use it as a last resort on plants. Where I live, aphids are my only pest (usually), and soapy water pretty much does the trick. I have never had to spray sulphur...
As far as your plants go...you might wait and see if they perk up, or bite the bullet (dollar), and go buy some new seedlings.

I hate to say this but ditto....and never spray anything during the heat of the day.............it will burn no matter what you spray,,,,,,

I was using the sulfur/oil on a cherry tree for brown rot & codling moth eggs. I usually use copper on my tomatoes as a fungicide but since I had the sulpur/oil already mixed I sprayed that on instead. Like I said, I didn't know until after I did it that you're not supposed to mix oil and sulfur. It wasn't really hot when I sprayed (last Sunday I think) so maybe that will go in my favor. It's not really an economic issue so much since I started my plants from seed and have some back up. It's just that A) Some of the plants have been in the ground since the end of March and I'd hate to pull them up if they will be okay on their own, and B) If the problem is in fact Cucumber Mosaic and not the sulfur spray there's a totally different issue of introducing new plants that will most likely catch the same thing if I leave the old plants in place. I have a pretty good understanding of CMV and how it's transmitted, just don't know what I'm actually faced with.

> I hate to say this but ditto....and never spray
> anything during the heat of the day.............it
> will burn no matter what you spray,,,,,,

Yes, you're absolutely right but not the problem in this case. It was cloudy and not hot when I sprayed. So it's either the combination of sulfur/oil or CMV that's got my tomatoes!

Ah, but the oil will linger and linger and linger, and if the days warm up...but the mixture is the no no I think. I used to live where it got above 90 come May, and it wasn't til July that the brown rot set in, and of course, ALL the sprays to control that said "do not apply when the weather is 90 or higher". And, do you really believe the labels that say "okay to apply up thru day of harvest" that means, YOU ingest whatever you spray (so make sure its okay to ingest the stuff straight from the bottle before spraying the day before (or week before) harvest. Cause that's what you do, ingest what you spray.
Oh, about brown rot, I tried so many sprays once upon a time, to control that, it got pathetic (yeah, I branched out from my organic roots, gave up and tried chemical baths...didn't work. Just souped up my peaches so I was afraid to eat them.) So I gave up and started picking up ALL the brownrotted fruit and tossed em in the trash (or buried em extremely deep). That actually did more good than the sprays (which never controlled the problem anyway).

Well, I was trying to control brown rot at the flowering/"shuck off" stage... I sprayed sulfur/oil when the tree was dormant (which apparently is okay), then followed up with copper/oil/Bt during popcorn, and once during flower. The sulfur/oil in question was sprayed post flowering since even I know you're not supposed to spray sulfur during flowering, haha. Sadly, most of the flowers dropped, probably as a result of the sulfur/oil. It will be interesting to see if the remaining fruit have brown rot.
I also used the "Pull it and Throw Away" method last year but didn't want to trust in just that. My understanding is that the weather has a lot to do with the severity of infection... did you find that to be so? My codling moth problem certainly isn't helping. I've got pheramone traps up this year and am catching some of them.

wow, I think we're almost having a "live" conversation here, as I look at the times were posting... I never could get rid of the brown rot, no matter what I sprayed, and when. I talked with a plum grower, and the way they (the commercial growers) deal with it is to spray one week before harvest with some heavy duty chemical (ah, those store bought plums are full of a nice chem bath).... The most success I had was to remove every single fruit with the slightest touch of rot as soon as I saw it (I ate em, or froze em,and cut out the rot). And don't let even one get past you, or the spores will float all over and make problems next year. I never had codling moths...but I think the lure is a good idea, at least it gets most of the males...to bad they don't make a Male pheromone lure to attract all the females.

My thought exactly, about the lures.

I think my actual tree has brown rot in the main trunk (so I can't cut it off). Don't know how that's going to affect things.

> wow, I think we're almost having a "live"
> conversation here, as I look at the times were
> posting... I never could get rid of the brown rot,
> no matter what I sprayed, and when. I talked with a
> plum grower, and the way they (the commercial
> growers) deal with it is to spray one week before
> harvest with some heavy duty chemical (ah, those
> store bought plums are full of a nice chem bath)....
> The most success I had was to remove every single
> fruit with the slightest touch of rot as soon as I
> saw it (I ate em, or froze em,and cut out the rot).
> And don't let even one get past you, or the spores
> will float all over and make problems next year. I
> never had codling moths...but I think the lure is a
> good idea, at least it gets most of the males...to
> bad they don't make a Male pheromone lure to attract
> all the females.

ok just checking.......lol

I don't know that brown rot gets into the trunk, but there are certainly other things that can...When I first started growing fruit trees about 12 years ago, I overwatered a little nectarine tree and by the 3rd year is was oozing and looking yucky at ground level, so I removed the drips that gave it regular water and used a hose about every 3rd week instead. (crown rot) Took about a year, but it recovered, the rot went away, and that tree produced the most delicious nectarines I ever had (can't recall the variety tho). Another type tree I had that never recovered from a trunk infection was an apple. I borrowed a neighbors saw, failed to pour bleach on the blade to kill his pathogens, and the next year, that apple had a trunk infection that slowly rotted a limb. Each year I'd cut about a foot below the rotted part, douse it with every fungicide I could, but that rot just kept going. I finally got to cut the branch at the main trunk, and then I moved away, so I imagine that tree is a goner now.