Tomato Blight

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Daveswife
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Is it me, or is blight more vigorous this year?

We suffer from blight in this area (east Midlands) so we have grown Crimson Crush tomatoes this year, planting them outdoors. The plants have been vigorous, yielding a good crop of quite large, delicious tomatoes. Great for use in salad, fried or cooked in the oven, and for sauces and soup.

However, despite publicity to the contrary, from our experience this variety is definitely not blight resistant! We noticed some brown marks on leaves end July and through August but kept up the feeding and watering regime and cut off affected leaves. Had to take out three infected plants on 3rd September, and today, 5th September, six more plants have had to be removed. We can’t believe how quickly blight has spread in the last 48 hours but we have had quite a lot of rain.

On the plus side, it is bin day tomorrow so the discarded stuff is going off-site. We have already had a good yield from these plants and for this reason and the taste, we will definitely grow this variety again.

Today’s garden activity cutting down the affected plants has produced a washing up bowl overflowing with tomatoes. Most are ripe, so tomorrow morning will be spent making soup and sauce which we will enjoy very much indeed over the winter. And I know what we will be having or breakfast tomorrow, fried tomatoes on toast!

Off the subject of tomatoes, our reliably blight resistant Sarpo Mira potatoes grown in buckets have also shown signs of blight and I have cut off the foliage, storing the buckets under tree cover in the garden ready for winter use.

We would be very interested in anyone else's comments about the Crimson Crush tomato variety or blight in general. Is there anything you recommend to delay the onset?
Angie
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Primrose
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I think the real issue is that all the marketed blight resistant tomatoes are merely that, " resistant" but not immune. I had the same problem with Ferline this year which is marketed as blight resistant. In fact, although I got a reasonable crop from them before they eventually succumbed and had to be pulled out and destroyed, they started showing signs of blight before my Moneymakers and Gardeners Delight, so make of that what you will !

I grow my tomatoes up against a south facing fence and next year I'm thinking I might try and rig up a couple of long transparent polythene curtains clipped to the top of the fence which I can pull down over the tomatoes to completely cover them whenever the weather gets vaguely humid and likely to be "blight" weather. I honestly don,t know if this would work because I suspect there are probably blight spores in tiny quantities in the air for much of the time. However if temperatures are gradually rising I suspect blight is going to become more of a problem in the years to come

Another alternative might be to cover each individual outdoor plant with a very wide transparent polythene bag to protect it. i did see something along the lines of these advertised a year ago. i'll check and see if I can find the reference.
Daveswife
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Thanks ever so much, Primrose. We usually grow Ferline. We shouldn't let ourselves be influenced by the Marketing Men! We always plant our tomatoes in a group but perhaps we would be better to plant one here, one there, one the other side of the beans, one by the sweetcorn and so on so they are spread around the veg area. I doubt we will ever be free of blight but maybe a random planting approach might delay the onset.
Angie
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Primrose
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http://fjoms.en.alibaba.com/product/130 ... lants.html

I can,t find what an was looking for but the above is rather similar. . As I can't remember which horticultural supplier was selling them. Perhaps the bags/large tubular plastic rolls are no longer available but the above link may give yiu an idea. The large transparent bags used by dry cleaners for protecting suits, etc might be the right size but will think they're too thin and a more substantial thickness of plastic would be needed to make some kind of permanent protective cover

I think I may have mentioned these bags on this forum in connection with tomatoes a couple of years ago but don,t know how to do a sufficiently detailed search to find the topic

Request to all new catalogue recipients this winter. If you see an item of this description in one of your new catalogues, could you flag it up please. I was sure I'd made a note of it at the time with the intention o fgiving it a trial but the moment slipped by due to other distractions.
Daveswife
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Thanks Primrose. Yes, I see how it works. I found this on Amazon "Greemotion 360121 Tomato Plant Cover 0.65 x 10 m" which presumably is a tube and one cuts off an appropriate length. So the type of product you refer to is available just a matter of finding the right one so thanks, again, for flagging this up in your post.
Angie
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Bad blight will sneak in regardless but I had some polycarbonate sheets given to me by someone who had demolished a lean to and made a shelter for my toms. U shaped bed with these sheets covering them & I kept my tomatoes going while other plots succumbed weeks or even months before. Shame they all blew away, never to be found again!

An old neighbour grew her toms in grow bags against her shed & draped plastic over some shelf brackets & taped a roll up sheet of plastic on the front. Just unrolled the front & held it down with bricks when a warning came & always did well.

I trialled some Crimson Crush when they came out & they got blight. I agree they actually tasted nice which was a shame. Wouldn't grow them again though as many more great non blight resistant varieties available that are cheaper. I think I agree that spreading your crop around does help. I had my spuds at the back & my toms at the front on lottie this year & my toms have survived (well up until Sunday) but my spuds succumbed very early - which luckily is not such a disaster.
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Chantal
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We grew Crimson Crush and Mountain Magic for the first time this year, along with a dozen or more other varieties of tomato. The Mountain Magic plants were the first to go down with blight, beating everything in sight, but the Crimson Crush just hung on in there. Apart from a couple of leaves and one tomato that were affected, they just kept on cropping.

Interestingly Suttons website says this about Crimson Crush

"With regards to the nature of the blight resistance, plants can still show infection (up to 10-15%) of leaves, stems etc. without effecting fruit quality or yield. The plants having the resistance to be able to grow away from the attack."

We had a huge yield of massive and tasty tomatoes and were very impressed. We'll be growing them next year for sure.

As for the Mountain Magic, I complained to T&M who gave me a full refund, although they did say they'd had no other complaints at that point.
Chantal

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bigal
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lf you want polythene sheeting for protection try 'layflat polythene tubing'. Comes up to 4 ft wide (8 ft circumference) with any number of suppliers on google. If you want flat sheet as well, just cut along one side of the tube. l believe black polythene is also available in layflat form, and can be used in small sizes to make pots. Just cut to length and staple one end together.
Just as a thought, l wonder if carrots and parsnips could be grown extra long in them?
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