Tomato Blight- Countrywide?

[crazy_red]

Hi,

I've started this as a new thread following on from the 'indoor-outdoor' tomato thread.

So many people have mentioned tomato blight that I thought it merited a new discussion.

From what I can understand, as a newbie, tomato blight can be identified by a brown splotching of the leaves and although the vines grow and the tomatoes form, they fail to ripen? Is this correct?

Are all parts of the country prone to getting this, or is it worse in some areas.I also wondered if you're more likely to get it if you grow potatoes on your plot as well?

Some souces say it's air borne and others say it's soil borne. Does anyone know the real skinny on this? Is there any treatment?

I apologetically confess that I've never apparently had this with my tomatoes, the only veg I've ever grown, and now I'm paranoid about growing any in case they get it

Red

[terrier]

Just put 'Blight' into the search box at the top of the page and you can spend all Christmas reading about it. I think there must be more discusion on blight on gardenning forums than any other plant malady. Yes, it is a serious problem, especially the last few years, evidently.

[Alice]

I never had it before this year Crazy Red, but it was a very wet summer.
My beautiful tomatoes got completely wiped with it in August.
They can be sprayed with Dithane against blight if you don't mind spraying with fungicide.
Another option is to go for very early maturing varieties and hope to get your crop before blight arrives in August.
I'm going to go for and early start and early variety next year.
I'm not having beauties like these wiped out again.

[Two_Sheds]

Here you go Red, from the archives: all you ever needed to know! Grow Your Own - BLIGHT THREADS

[crazy_red]

Thanks T-S. Will have a good read.

[crazy_red]

I'm going to go for and early start and early variety next year.
I'm not having beauties like these wiped out again.

What varieties would anyone recommend. I understand Ferline is supposed to be good, but F1 varieties are a bit pricey.

How do you know which are early varieties and when should they be started off?

Sorry for all the questions!

[vicky]

I got over 40lb red toms off my 6 ferline and 6 Legend plants and probably over 20lb green tomatoes last summer, so they are pricey but you get your moneys worth! I won't grow Legend again (too unruly!) and the Ferline are just so much more productive. They didn't get blight till autumn.
I also have luck with regular varieties in pots (I use fresh compost), against a sunny wall (sheltered from the wind?), Sungold and Tigerella did fine, BUT in the same situation Sub Artic did very badly.
Put Ferline on you Christmas List, you'll be converted!

[FB.]

Hi,

Some souces say it's air borne and others say it's soil borne. Does anyone know the real skinny on this? Is there any treatment?

Tomato blight is a fungus. Fungi generally reproduce using spores. The spores of fungi are tiny and are intended to be blown and splashed around, to help spread the infection. Fungal spores will also survive (dormant) in the environment, ready to infect susceptible plants the following season.
So in answer to your question: consider it to be both airborne and soilborne.

[gojiberry]

I have not found a tomato that you can start early enough to beat the blight as it usually arrives before we get enough sun to ripen the tomatoes. I don't bother any more with outdoor tomatoes and just grow under shelter. From experience I have not found blight to be either airborne or soil borne but rain borne. I always use fresh compost and providing I keep the rain off the plants they are OK. May be I have just been lucky.

Ian

[Two_Sheds]

I am in just about the driest part of the UK, and definitely the furthest East you can go and still have dry feet ~ and I still get blight every Aug/Sept.

In future, I will just grow Sungold and only in the back garden.

[Alice]

Crazy Red, for information on ealy tomato varieties see the link.
Vegetable Seeds : Bush Tomato Seed

[FB.]

From experience I have not found blight to be either airborne or soil borne but rain borne. I always use fresh compost and providing I keep the rain off the plants they are OK. May be I have just been lucky.

Ian

I'm no expert on blight (and we have no plans to ever grow tomatoes as we don't really like them), but it may be that tomato blight needs additional environmental conditions for the spores to germinate - other than simple wind dispersal of the spores.
For example, early in the apple growing season, for spores of apple scab to germinate, it requires a wet leaf surface for at least 6 hours if the temperature is between 16-23'C.
At 14-15'C, it requires at least 7 hours of wetness.
At 12-13'C it requires at least 8 hours of wetness.

Perhaps blight needs a similar wet-leaf period - and such a wet period may not be replicated with sheltered plants.

[Duronal]

Early last year I read something similar to what FB has posted about above elsewhere and chased up some solutions. The most promising was a method which tried to promote air circulation by trimming the plants down to 3/4 branches of leaves. The idea is that rain can still get into the pot and the leaves which get dry quicker because of increased air circulation. I managed to gain an extra month when using this method last year when everybody at the allotment up the road was going down with the dreaded blight.

Food for thought?

D

I think this was the original article.
06-16-01 Late Blight, the Scourge of the Tomato Garden

[Alison]

I got it last year for the first time but I know that a friend who lives only about half a mile away got hit very badly the year before.

[Nicos]

I've only ever had it on outdoor toms in Cheshire- the greenhouse ones have always been fine- watered with water from an open topped butt collcted from a greenhouse roof- I'd have thought there would have been blight spores in that rainwater!!