I am planning on using one or both of these to combat blights and such on my greenhouse tomatoes this season. I am wondering if either of these two is better than the other or if both should be used. I have serenade that was given to me but I know it was stored in a hot shed and all the bottles were unopened. Should this still be effective? Any way I know there are a few of you that have used these products for different things and I would love to hear opinions of one versus the other. Thanks.
Serenade is live bacterial product, so i am not really sure how it will do after hot storage. I used Serenade for tomatoes, it is really delaying blights, but the key is to start as early as possible and do it every week. They claim Serenade is not poisonous even if consumed as it is made of the same staff some supplements for human consumption are, but the thing is, it smells so nasty, that you will HAVE to wash your tomatoes well before eating.
I have heard that Serenade is better as a preventative, whereas copper soap has some to arrest infections. Based on that, I try to use Serenade prior to any disease breakouts and then cooper sprays after infection.
Thanks guys. Great info. I may use the serenade early season as a preventative. If it doesn’t work oh well. It was stored in a dark shed building but I know those things can get pretty hot down here. I’ll have some copper soap on hand as well and can switch to that when needed. Thanks again.
I wonder why silver couldn’t be used as an anti-fungal or anti-biotic much like some of these currently used compounds on fruit and vegetables. I’m talking like maybe a colloidal silver “soap” in place of copper “soap”. There’s some concern about the toxicity of copper in the soil, and thought why not silver?
I have made my own colloidal silver and am pleased with its results. The initial outlay was about $50 for the equipment, and now all I’m out is a couple bucks for the distilled water to make it with. It takes me about 4 hours to make a quart of it. A plus is that it wouldn’t cost as much to produce as a jug of Bonide spray. So, all I need figure out is a way to combine it with a soap, and it keep its antimicrobial properties… Hmmm…
On my tomatoes last year I alternated Serenade and Actinovate as well as removing any diseased leaves I saw. Did honestly pretty good until I stopped spraying, when the plants were getting so big it was a chore. Then the disease took over pretty quickly though we still got good harvests (the stinkbugs ruined a lot, but that’s a different story). Don’t have a copper story to compare them to though. Central VA so fairly humid and high disease pressure here.