Anyone got blight on their toms or spuds?

[Alison]

I've just pulled up two outdoor bush tomato plants today, not much blight yet and only a couple of fruits with any signs but it was definitely blight. Have a couple of punnets of green tomatoes which are going in a chutney with the 3 large courgettes I found hidden below leaves on Friday so all is not lost. No signs on the spuds (only got it on the toms last year too and don't spray on principle) or the polytunnel toms or even on the other toms in the outside bed (different varieites) so will have to keep an eye on it all. Fingers crossed I got it early enough before it spread.

[FionaH]

Right got full smith period both here and at my Dads where the maincrop lives. Does this mean I will definitely get blight? Should I be chopping the spuds down now?

[Alison]

Right got full smith period both here and at my Dads where the maincrop lives. Does this mean I will definitely get blight? Should I be chopping the spuds down now?

No, it just means the conditions are right for the plants to sucumb IF it's in the air at the time which it may well not be. If you look on the blight alert site it explains all of this (not too sure which menu it's under though). If you are happy spraying then the warning is a good time to spray but you definitely need to keep an eye on your plants but don't cut them back as it might be totally unnecessary.

[FionaH]

Thanks Alison. My maincrop are at my Dads so I can't check on them daily. Dad would know blight from a hole in his elbow either! Will go check em tomorrow though.

[Tomatoking]

I've just pulled up two outdoor bush tomato plants today, not much blight yet and only a couple of fruits with any signs but it was definitely blight. Have a couple of punnets of green tomatoes which are going in a chutney with the 3 large courgettes I found hidden below leaves on Friday so all is not lost. No signs on the spuds (only got it on the toms last year too and don't spray on principle) or the polytunnel toms or even on the other toms in the outside bed (different varieites) so will have to keep an eye on it all. Fingers crossed I got it early enough before it spread.

Alison
I have found a spray that you could try as a preventative measure, which is organic.

Regular compost tea
Early in the morning, place some of your finest quality compost in a porous cloth container and put it in a container full of cool water; an old sock for a gallon of water; a pillowcase or sack in a clean can full of water. If its town water, let it sit for a day first and stir it a few times to dissipate the chlorine. Let your tea steep for 24 hours, then strain the liquid and spray immediately the next morning; you want to use it right away to get the maximum number of little compost guys fighting for you. (Return the contents of your ‘tea bag’ to your compost pile.)

Mr TK

[chris]

If you don't have home made compost ready yet... can you use shop bought? Is there any evidence to back this up? I'm trying to grow organically (as much as possible anyway), so don't want to spray any nasties - I've had two alerts of full smith periods.. and it's been raining loads as of late.

[Alison]

Alison
I have found a spray that you could try as a preventative measure, which is organic.

Regular compost tea
Early in the morning, place some of your finest quality compost in a porous cloth container and put it in a container full of cool water; an old sock for a gallon of water; a pillowcase or sack in a clean can full of water. If its town water, let it sit for a day first and stir it a few times to dissipate the chlorine. Let your tea steep for 24 hours, then strain the liquid and spray immediately the next morning; you want to use it right away to get the maximum number of little compost guys fighting for you. (Return the contents of your ‘tea bag’ to your compost pile.)

Mr TK

Interesting, thanks. Anybody tried this or have any idea how it works? Guess you'd have to do it pretty often but at least it would be cheap

[Tomatoking]

If you don't have home made compost ready yet... can you use shop bought? Is there any evidence to back this up? I'm trying to grow organically (as much as possible anyway), so don't want to spray any nasties - I've had two alerts of full smith periods.. and it's been raining loads as of late.

Not sure about shop compost Chris.
I found this on some organic US sites, they do get a lot of blight and this seemed to be the one that was mentioned most.

There were some trials that showed it helped, but not as much as say Bordeaux mix or Mancozeb.

I will research a little more when I have time, but I did read somewhere how it worked.

Mr TK

[Leeds_lad]

I've just been out and noticed the early signs of blight, the spots on the leaves. healthy leaves suddenly going droopy and brown

[womble]

I haven't had blight yet, looking at blightwatch, it doesn't seem we've had many smith periods, but when I cross checked it against last year, it's about the same.
I did spot a couple of bits in the greenhouse which may have been blight, but I'm not certain. It was as I was removing a load of leaves anyway, so they all went and I havn't seen any more since then.
I'm also checking on my amateur growing neighbours outside plants and they seem ok, as are their potatoes and my 2 heritage potato plants.

[susieq100]

We went away so I did not visit the allotment for a few days and my outdoor toms (only 2 plants but they had loads of big green fruit) were completely gone! From healthy to utterly ruined in 5 days. Lots of outdoor ones at home too, but they all look OK at the moment. It has rained and rained ... I don't have room in the greenhouse for them all. I suppose I could put one or two in the conservatory but OH will go spare - that's why I've got a greenhouse! To stop me having to put plants in the conservatory.

[StephenH]

A question for the experts: is it ok to remove unripe fruit from affected plants, if the fruit themselves are not yet affected, and try to ripen them on the windowsill, or will they be incubating blight, and will they then become affected by blight before they ripen? If so, I'll make them into green tomato chutney, but if not, I'll try to ripen them.

[Tomatoking]

I am no expert on this Stephen, but I tend to save all the good green fruit, but if I see any marks showing on it later then I dump it.

If I have a really badly effected plant with marks already on the fruit plant then I dump all fruit.

I have done a little more on my blog about compost tea, which is slightly more complicated to make properly that I first thought.

Mr TK

[MalUK]

Being a newbie to growing toms in gh I expected a high yield but was so disappointed I sort of gave them up. I continued the feed and water but am wondering if this is blight or a deficiency. The tomatoes have struggled to ripen and now have a lustre gold appearance.

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Disclaimer: not an expert. That looks like there's something missing in the soil. The leaves are showing signs of advanced chlorosis, which either means you aren't giving the plant enough feed (probably a lack of nitrogen or potassium), or there's some other metal deficiency such as magnesium.

[Alison]

A question for the experts: is it ok to remove unripe fruit from affected plants, if the fruit themselves are not yet affected, and try to ripen them on the windowsill, or will they be incubating blight, and will they then become affected by blight before they ripen? If so, I'll make them into green tomato chutney, but if not, I'll try to ripen them.

If the fruits aren't showing blight then they're fine to use. I took a load off on Sunday but as I also have loads of ripened fruit I'm intending to use them for chutney as green fruit (wanted some for that anyway) but other years I've ripened OK although as said above, you do need to keep an eye out for any that develop symptoms and bin them quickly before it spreads to any of the other fruits.