Strange marks on toms

[Marb67]

These Alicante Tom's have grown nice and big over the last few months. But just the last few days are getting mottled marks on the fruits. It's NOT blight as the leaves are all cut off to prevent it. No marks anywhere else. Is it blossom end rot?

[Martin H]

I'm afraid it does look like blight to me. Sorry.

[Nicos]

Sorry - I’m going with blight too…but I’m more than happy to be told I’m wrong.
once it’s in the plant pulling off infected leaves will only slow the process
Two of my plants have just started to succumb so I’ve stripped the lot - green and all. Don’t want to risk losing what I have. Green toms are great in curries- and chutney of course.
Deffo not blossom end rot- that would be underneath where the flower would have been.

[Plot70]

I removed three plants with blight and allowed a couple more to grow on.
They showed signs of blight and lost a fair bit of fruit and then started producing healthy sucker growth.
I am tempted to over winter a root stock.

[Jungle Jane]

Cutting leaves off doesn’t stop blight from infecting the plant. Blossom end rot happens on the ends (bottom) of tomatoes,this browning of the tomato is blight.

[Marb67]

So it's not worth cutting off all the green Tom's and using them in curries now before they turn?

[Nicos]

I’m doing that now Marb. So long as they don’t taste metallic ( that’s blight flavour) they are fine!
You might be able to keep yours a bit longer but we are away for a few days later this week and I just want them gone now.
If you want to try and get them to last longer keep a very close eye on them….

[Nicos]

I removed three plants with blight and allowed a couple more to grow on.
They showed signs of blight and lost a fair bit of fruit and then started producing healthy sucker growth.
I am tempted to over winter a root stock.

Be interesting to see what happens. I thought that once the plant was affected then that was the end of it?

[Plot70]

It just began to grow from the root again and held on to a few fruits. The new growth even has flowers on it.

[Marb67]

Well i'm going to chop them all up, put them in freezer bags and freeze them until needed. This should also kill any blight on them.

[Jungle Jane]

When blight comes along,I usually pick them all & leave on the windowsill for a few days,some will brown showing signs of blight,some stay green. Freezing might stop the progression of blight but I don’t think it will kill it if it’s already infected.

[Penellype]

I removed three plants with blight and allowed a couple more to grow on.
They showed signs of blight and lost a fair bit of fruit and then started producing healthy sucker growth.
I am tempted to over winter a root stock.

My concern with overwintering blighted plants is that this is how blight survives over winter. You may just be storing up trouble for next year.

[Plot70]

The blight has spread a little bit more with the latest batch of blight rain. They will be disposed of.

[ameno]

When blight comes along,I usually pick them all & leave on the windowsill for a few days,some will brown showing signs of blight,some stay green. Freezing might stop the progression of blight but I don’t think it will kill it if it’s already infected.

Freezing will kill the blight. However, it won't get rid of any taint to the flavour from infected patches on the fruit.
Any infected patches (even very early stages, which are indicated by slight stippling of the skin, without any discolouration as yet) should be cut out and disposed of before freezing.