Kitchen Garden Forum

Chantal wrote:I have... the house batch .. another batch in the greenhouse and a third batch in my car!

That's quite a disaster prevention strategy Chantal

Is this a spare car, or do you drive around with them?! Having lost several crops to Blight in previous years, I can understand drastic steps to protect the investment of time & effort of the past few months.

I have to admit to driving around with them. But as I do around 10 miles a week at the moment, that's not so bad.

Alan research by sarpo ? Might it be just a teeny bit biased
Johnboy, others disagree and say stress does increase the risk

http://www.avrdc.org/pdf/tomato/early_blight.pdf

and mulching helps to prevent stress, and infection from fungus spores in the soil, which happens in rainstorms with splash back to lower leaves.

http://blog.douggreensgarden.com/tomato-blight/

encouraging plant resistence to pathogens, by soil bacteria and fungi

http://jxb.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/erm230v1

http://www.ag.auburn.edu/users/kloepjw/ ... 842000.pdf

Hi NB,
Others are free to disagree with me but I stand fast in what I have said.
I really have not got the inclination to read reams and reams of hypothetical nonsense presented as facts!
JB.

Nature's Babe wrote:others disagree and say stress does increase the risk

As far as I could see from your links the authors do not have the specialist scientific training and experience of Dr Shaw:

Dr David Shaw, Director of Research
My undergraduate degree, Botany, was from University of Glasgow in 1962. I stayed on to research Phytophthora and graduated PhD in 1965. A NATO Post-doctoral Fellowship took me to Michigan State University for two years to continue my research. My first job was lecturing on Genetics and Plant Pathology at Bangor University. I developed an active research group studying the genetics of Phytophthora infestans, the pathogen of late-blight disease. I retired in 2002 to take up my present post as Director of Research at SRT after seeing Sárpo varieties perform under heavy blight pressure. Any spare time is spent either tending roses and growing fruit and vegetables or helping to sustain the Treborth Botanic Garden of Bangor University.

Your "cheap" comment "Alan research by sarpo ? Might it be just a teeny bit biased" is a gratuitous slur on him and serves only to emphasise the poverty of your "argument". Like Johnboy, I accept that you are entitled to your views, but please do not equate "expressions of faith" with statements of scientific fact based on research and empirical observation.

[PS Colin-M

Sorry that you original post has resulted in this polemic.]

Yes you are entitled to your opinions as I am. Actually if you had taken the time to read the articles you would see they are from the University of Florida and Auburn and quite valid research. I also have quite a good appreciation of research from my nursing days, I look very carefully at it,
sometimes quite small variants can add bias or alter results. Germany and England both researched the risks for children getting leukaemia if they live near a nuclear power station Germany found an increased risk of 50%
UK - no risk, the difference? Germany looked at a 5 mile radius and UK a 15 mile radius.

Nature's Babe wrote:Actually if you had taken the time to read the articles you would see they are from the University of Florida and Auburn and quite valid research.

Dear NB

Why do you assume that I didn't "bother to read..."?

The first two links concerning tomato blight (the subject under discussion) don't appear to emanate from the Universities you claim.

No the last two do, but I also value common sense,observation, experience and imaginative ideas. Some of civilisations best advances came from people with those abilities and they were often ridiculed by the established academics of their time. I didn't mention your name Alan, it was Johnboy who said he didn't have the time to read hypothetical nonsense. In fact many advances start with a hypothesis that may look a little far fetched and to some nonsensical.

NB,
All advances start as a hypothesis they are the thoughts of somebody.
The only difference is that with so many alternative websites, which you seem to favour, forget to do the scientific research, which is the hard bit, and try and pass off their theories as fact.
When it comes to a scientific fact you, because you read too many alternative websites, disbelieve the science.
Now I appreciate that you are trying very hard to prove your point all the time and we, with many years of experience and in my case horticultural training, are simply a load of clucks! I somehow resent this!
By now you should have realised that we accept what you do and how you do it but as far as I am concerned I am not going to change my method of production and I suspect that there are a great many people on this forum who have neither the time nor the inclination to change what they have done for many years because it works for them and always has. Why try and mend something which is not broken!
I tried the French Total Return System for 5 years and the results compared with a normal Organic System growing along side it were very poor both in quality and quantity.
At that time I was strictly Organic but today I am a Pragmatic Gardener.
I am very interested in what you are doing and I have even bought and almost finished reading 'The One-Straw Revolution'.
I will give you my thoughts on the book when I have completed reading it and given myself time to go through certain passages again to give myself time to think hard and long about it.
When I give any advice to anybody about matters concerning this forum it comes from experience and I do not need to publish reams of websites to try and prove my case. If you have to do this I suspect that you are very unsure as to what you actually are doing!
JB.

Ooops, seems I am unable to please, if I don't provide links i am asked for source/ proof , if I do add links that too is criticised. Johnboy I believe i have always shown you all respect without criticising any of you personally.
Like you I try to be pragmatic, it works for me and I don't feel unsure, I just continue to keep an open mind, and respect any different views.

Chantal - just out of interest, have you done anything to the tomatoes you've harvested to try and possibly stop any potential blighted tomatoes from developing further or spreading the blight to their companions? i.e. washing them, or soaking them in water briefly?

I haven't spotted any signs of blight on my plants yet, (although I do have a few leaves which have small purpleish-black patches round some edges and I don't know what this is, but have been removing them) but have sprayed them three times since early July, so consequently thoroughly wash all the fruits I pick. I did read that washing them in Milton sterilising fluid could help ward off further infection but don't know whether anybody has tried this and whether it works.

Hi Primrose

I've only had that single tomato that was blighted and that's a miracle!

No, I don't bother washing them to try to prevent further spread. I did once wash them in Milton in the hope of stopping blight affecting some fruit, but it made no difference at all, the whole lot were lost. Once infected, they're goners.

My tomatoes are ripening beautifully in the greenhouse, less ready in the house and even less in AJay (car) but as they all seem clean after 2 weeks I'm starting to move the house ones into the greenhouse and hope to empty AJay within a week or so. It's a good job I'm not needing to use her much at present.

Even after our 40 mm of rain my allotment toms show no sign of blight. It was quite bad the last 2 years. I wonder if OH has had the same experience. This year my plants are grown at one end of the plot which gets the prevailing wind first, so there are no spores being blown onto them. Blight normally, of course, comes from being spat up from the soil by the falling rain, but I know it can also be wind-borne. When I grow next year in the adjoining bed I'll see if they get anything from this year's bed.

Morning Mike, all clear at the moment.

Mike Vogel wrote: Blight normally, of course, comes from being spat up from the soil by the falling rain, but I know it can also be wind-borne. .

Is this a fact? I so, would it we worth mulching round with leaf mould, straw, growing through plastic etc?