The notion that one must spend a lot of money on disease prevention as an insurance policy is not true. The following tips will allow your money to work harder for you, so you can spend less and still maintain adequate disease control. First, don't expect 100 percent control from any plant-disease control method. Doing so would just result in disappointment. Do remember that total control of a disease is not only unlikely, but unnecessary.
Crops can tolerate a certain amount of disease with no loss of yield or quality.
Take advantage of free services , such as plant-problem diagnosis and insect and weed identification offered by the Tennessee Agricultural Extension Service's Plant and Pest Diagnostic Center at Nashville. Attempts at expediting the process can be made by using the distance diagnostics feature of the service. Your Extension agent can send digital images electronically and receive a diagnosis rapidly, if one is possible. Have your soil tested and follow the lab recommendations for lime and fertilizer. Not only can you save money by avoiding unnecessary lime and fertilizer costs, but you can avoid some diseases by producing healthy plants capable of resisting infection.