Are there any varieties of tomatoes that are late blight resistant besides Legend? I've been hunting around the net and there seems to be some promises of new varieties this year but I haven't found a source for anything except Legend. I'm going to order a pack of Legend seeds but I'd like to have a few more options.
I hear legend isn't all that great for resistance to blight, new strains evolve, lots of chemicals is the only solution to blight I have found, it really sucks!
The main thing is to keep the leaves dry. Don't expose plants to rain, and don't water by sprinkling from above. (And of course, don't add blighted plants to your compost heap). I've never had blight in my greenhouse, lots of it on unprotected plants outside.
Ian
Even with chemicals, if it rains, you're screwed. Otherwise, train and trim tomato vine so that it is open to sun and drying winds.
I don't have a practical way to protect the plants from the rain (greenhouse or very large tarp I guess), it seems blight was a problem once every 5 years, now it's every year. I use to have 8 foot plants, now, barely 4 in a good year
I also believe it is an airborne problem as I relocated the garden with no benefits.
Still, I have a friend across town who has no problems and doesn't do anything, his bottom leaves are totally green (no disease whatsoever) up until the first day of frost! Ah, I remember those days....
Worth a look /try.
I noticed chemicals give me one/two weeks of protection, rain or not, it must kill all the fungus/spores on contact as I notice the blight stops immediately, I guess the spores take a week or so to gather up their numbers and take hold again
I grew Legend last year and was not impressed -- although the weather was so bad for tomatoes and peppers it might not have been a fair test. The few fruit that I got tasted good, but the plants were eat-up with blight just like any other tomato, and the yield was not all that good. However I also grew some Porter tomatoes and those plants were big and healthy (they have no particular resistances, but were bred to tolerate poor weather.) So I'll probably plant the Porters again this year, and maybe a few Better Boys. Go back to what works.
Giving the plants lots of nitrogen early in the season so they grow big and lush seems to help. Then stop with the N once they start blooming.
Or you can just plant tomatillos instead of tomatoes. ;-)
Bob
I sprayed last year but I wasn't happy about it. I managed to arrest the blight enough so that I got some tomatoes but growing your own fungicide covered tomatoes defeats the purpose of having a home garden.
I've ordered seeds this year. Last year's massive late blight infestation was blamed on the big box stores selling tainted plants. I bought plants from both of them as well as from local garden supply stores. This year I'm going to do everything from seed.
I've ordered a packet of Legends as well as several heirloom varieties, Black Sea Man Tomato, Organic Yellow Pear, and Italian Grape.
that they are late maturing. If I was worried about late blight (I've never had to deal with it) that I'd want an early ripening tomato like Azoychka:60 days, Golden Bison:59 Days,Orange Banana:52 days
-- Water tomatoes around the base, not from above, to avoid prolonged wetting of leaves.
-- Make sure to give plants space.
-- Stake and prune to keep air circulating and plants dry.
-- Destroy volunteer tomato and potato plants (they can carry the fungus), as well as plants that are obviously diseased. Put them in a plastic bag and into the trash. Do not compost them.
-- Clean your gardening and pruning tools with alcohol or a 10-percent bleach solution. Do not prune your tomatoes without sanitizing the equipment. When there's a disease or pest that commonly affects plants, choose disease-resistant varieties. Unfortunately, in this case, there aren't any.
Pruner tool cleaning seems to matter.
I've never been a big fan of Linda Chalker-Scott, and this article does nothing to change my opinion. It could be that because of my experience with chlorine in wineries, I'm most comfortable with it (not that most wineries use chlorine anymore, most had switched over to bromine, and now to ozone).
In any event, she was talking about field work, most of us gardeners work fairly close to our homes, and it wouldn't be that inconvenient to have a bucket of chlorine solution that wouldn't need to be moved. I would only add, chlorine should be rinsed-off with clean water after sterilizing, and, if not to be used again immediately, oiled.
Once I saw a hand pruner that was tied to a cleaner of sorts but I thought it was excessive and not warranted . Tubes to cleaner solution as you cut. Looking about I see folks selling lemon oil.. I just keep em sharp and oil when they may need it. Seems there is a large issue with disease and it's containment. I believe healthy soil and perhaps not planting the same every year in the same spot is wise. Fallow I think is the word which I equate with rest and healing. Give it ( the soil a break without intrusion) and come back latter with another attempt to find out what harmony may mean. The tomato blight seems to suggest 2 years but Green peppers are essentially banished from our area due too long lived soil pathogens.
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Harmony, I don't think so, nature is about disease and massive extinction as the norm, tomatoes are not native to the USA for a reason, they are bred to taste good to humans, it does havoc to their survival abilities though. Hybrids are the extreme, their destiny is to go extinct in one season by design, you want a all natural fool proof tomato plant that lives in harmony with nature? it's fruit will probably taste like a potato! and bear 1/10 the fruit. Modern tomato plants are like most modern milk cows and dogs, they would never survive in the wild without massive human support system behind them.
Marglobe 1917 tasty and tough.
Symbiosis: interaction between two different organisms living in close physical association, typically to the advantage of both.
In the past 540 million years there have been five major events when over 50% of animal species died.
Undocumented fruits?
Maybe, once upon a time. These days they are mostly grown for cosmetic qualities and durability in shipping.
Maybe in one generation, but not necessarily in one season.
Indeterminate types are "tender" perennials, dying annually in temperate climates (they are originally native to tropical highlands), although they can live up to three years in a greenhouse in some cases.
Citation please.
Yet, I have volunteers, every year in my garden. They are Yellow Plum, and grow amongst my dwarf fruit trees and strawberries.
Teaming with Microbes: A Gardener's Guide to the Soil Food Web Jeff Lowenfels and Wayne Lewis
A large and diverse community controls troublemakers. A good analogy is_ a thief in a crowded market: if there are enough people around, they will catch_ or even stop the thief (and it is in their self-interest to do so). If the market is_ deserted, however, the thief will be successful, just as he will be if he is stronger,_ faster, or in some other way better adapted than those that would be in pursuit.
Just as important, every member of the soil food web has its place in the_ soil community. Each, be it on the surface or subsurface, plays a specific role._ Elimination of even just one group can drastically alter a soil community. Birds_ participate by spreading protozoa carried on their feet or dropping a worm_ taken from one area into another. Too many cats, and things will change. Dung_ from mammals provides nutrients for beetles in the soil. Kill the mammals, or_ eliminate their habitat or food source (which amounts to the same thing), and_ you won't have as many beetles. It works in the reverse as well. A healthy soil_ food web won't allow one set of members to get so strong as to destroy the web._ If there are too many nematodes and protozoa, the bacteria and fungi on_ which they prey are in trouble and, ultimately, so are the plants in the area.
And there are other benefits. The nets or webs fungi form around roots act_ as physical barriers to invasion and protect plants from pathogenic fungi and_ bacteria. Bacteria coat surfaces so thoroughly, there is no room for others to attach themselves. If something impacts these fungi or bacteria and their numbers drop or they disappear, the plant can easily be attacked.
Special soil fungi, called mycorrhizal fungi, establish themselves in a symbiotic relationship with roots, providing them not only with-physical protection but with nutrient delivery as well. In return for exudates, these fungi provide water, phosphorus, and other necessary plant nutrients. Soil food web _populations must be in balance, or these fungi are eaten and the plant suffers.
Bacteria produce exudates of their own, and the slime they use to attach to_ surfaces traps pathogens. Sometimes, bacteria work in conjunction with fungi_ to form protective layers, not only around roots in the rhizosphere but on an_ equivalent area around leaf surfaces, the phyllosphere. Leaves produce exudates that attract microorganisms in exactly the same way roots do; these act_ as a barrier to invasion, preventing disease-causing organisms from entering_ the plant's system. Some fungi and bacteria produce inhibitory compounds, things like vitamins and antibiotics, which help maintain or improve plant health; penicillin_ and streptomycin, for example, are produced by a soil-borne fungus and a soil-_borne bacterium, respectively.
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Mid-Columbia growers add hot mustard to fields By Drew Foster, Herald staff writer
Chinese hot mustard, like horseradish and habanero, is best consumed in small portions.
That's part of the thinking behind efforts by many Mid-Columbia farmers, particularly potato growers, to raise fields of mustard around this time of year. The mustard is grown from August to late fall -- it can reach 5 to 7 feet tall before it's chopped and tilled.
The chopped and buried mustard plants release chemicals that kill root-knot, root-lesion and stubby-root nematodes -- all enemies of Mid-Columbia potatoes.
"The chemicals in the mustard plant are the same chemicals as the mustard seed," said Andy McGuire, agriculture systems educator for the Washington State University Extension Office in Ephrata.
Mustard seed, when cracked and ground, is used to make the hot mustard offered at many Chinese restaurants. "You know that feeling you get when you eat hot mustard? ... It's the same reaction in the soil," he said.
In a sense, the pesky nematodes are bathed in the sinus-searing condiment.
"It gets into the water they're living in and kills them," McGuire said.
Using mustard as a so-called green manure crop in the Mid-Columbia dates back more than a decade. Besides killing nematodes, chopped and tilled mustard also fights soil-born fungal pathogens such as verticillium wilt.
This brings to mind 4-H camps when young and conservation folks presenting about crop rotation, fallow ground, fertilization with animal manure. Fallow is a concept long abandoned, cover crops and all and giving the soil rest and rebuild...given over to big-agri-biz and chemferts and roundup ready everything. Many is the hour I have spent in my youth walking bean fields and cutting weeds and later riding a tractor, cultivating crops, removing weeds and aerating the soil, etc. (yep, guilty as charged)
Had to spend a bit of time at the local Chevy dealership recently, getting a vehicle inspection and sat visiting with the elderly owner for an hour or so. Good converse, as it turns out we both have many old characters in common from the last fifty years. Even a Playboy Bunny, believe it or not. Part of the conversation involved the large amount of ground being farmed by single proprietors...ten thousand acres for one fellow, spread over a large chunk of northwest Missouri. His "crew" plants, sprays poison, and never sees the crop again until harvest.
Lots of love involved, eh?
Charlie
Industrial farming consequence via Union of concerned scientists.
More on pollutions Manure issues.
Funny, I thought Joel Salatin had already solved this problem for any who had 2 smarts to rub together. I guess this is just another example of the knuckle draggers privatizing the profits and socializing the costs.
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