Tomatoe Blight

[Chantal]

Hi Catherine

I have around 30 tomato plants in two greenhouses in my garden and a further 57 plants outside on my allotment.

Only the outdoor ones have been sprayed.

I bought a passata machine this year from Seeds of Italy and I am determined to use it!

[Primrose]

I've picked one tomato today which looks unhappy - unsure whether it's blight or blossom end rot so have sprayed again, although I'm loathe to spray this late in the season, even though rain is threatened. Like Chantal, those tomatoes I picked this morning I've stored in a separate room, having washed them all first. Incidentally, how long after spraying are you supposed to leave fruit before eating? (Using Dithane). I've lost the packet instructions. I'm also picked off a lot of lower surplus leaves to allow less exposure to possible blight spores although I'm unsure whether this makes much difference in terms of prevention. With so much more forecast rain ahead over the next few days I fear few of us will escape blight now.

[Granny]

Doesn't blight need heat as well? It's freezing here in the fens so I'm hopeful of no blight but very pessimistic about anything ripening. They're just shivering greenly at the moment. Still, the beans are continuing to flourish.
-----------------
Granny

[tracie]

Hi Everybody,

I tried the blight resistant toms this year. I will not bother again, they got the blight just the same as all the others did.

[chicken4]

Now i have pulled up the plants in the PT does this mean the soil is a no go area. I filled two large growing areas with the tom plants. So even if i grow them in other areas they will still be very close to the area used this year.
Do people with PT's grow in pots or grow bags to help with rotation?

[Bren]

Much the same question as Chicken4, I pulled up and bagged my outdoor plum tomatoes today due to the blight, can I grow some thing else in that patch next year, or do I use Armilatox or simalar to clean the soil?
Bren

[richard p]

i would grow something else there next year, anything but potatoes.
blight seems to be endemic on outdoor toms, the spores must travel for miles on the wind. ive tried outdoor toms for the last three years (without spraying to prevent blight)on a patch of ground that hasnt had toms or spuds on it before so the blight must have been airbourne. the same plants in the tunnel have survived so its not in the compost, pots etc. my experience is that unsprayed outdoor toms are a waste of space and effort, now have to decide whether to give them up or spray or maybe cram some bush ones in the tunnel along with the tall ones.

[WestHamRon]

I am glad your toms are doing well Chantel. We will have to look into the spray for next year.

[Chantal]

Thanks WHR, my tomatoes are still 99% OK and cropping (slowly). The very odd one looks a bit off so is being binned immediately, but generally they're doing good. I'm picking them as soon as they start to turn and ripening indoors.

Everyone else on our site has now had a complete wipe out.

[WigBag]

Popped down to the lottie on the way home from work and was pleasantly suprised at the haul of toms. I lost the lot last year so this year sprayed with Dipthane(?) in the first week in July. I saw signs of blight type marks in August so cut off anything affected and sprayed for the second time at the end of August on the only dry day available to me.
Those out in the open look odd, no foliage but ripening fruits. Those in the green house coming on.
All in all I am glad I didnt cull the lot, but I am still unsure wether it was:
a. a milder strain of blight
b. an effective treatment.
c. fortunate / good husbandry!
washed them all thoroughly at home and roasted a pile to make sauce for the freezer.

[Primrose]

I picked virtually all my remaining outdoor tomatoes yesterday, (ripening and green fruit) apart from a few green marbles of Gardeners Delight which I've left on the plants as I noticed blight had appeared virtually overnight on the stems of four of my Moneymakers. They've all been washed and dried but I've noticed some blotching on the skins of several fruit I picked a few days ago, so wonder if my earlier efforts to save them by spraying have been in vain. Chantal - did you managed to save those tomatoes you picked earlier? We are now on a daily diet of tomatoes cooked in various guises, as well as having made a good quantity of tomato purree for the freezer. However, half my crop is still waiting to ripen, be cooked/frozen/eaten, so if I lose them I'll be disappointed.
I've been noting the weights of all my beans and tomatoes as I've been picking them so will now tot everything up and see what my crop amounted to.

[Chantal]

Hi Primrose

All my tomatoes are absolutely fine. I must have sprayed with Bordeaux Mixture 5 times over the past 2 months, but with all the rain I was taking no chances.

All the ones picked early have ripened and there are hundreds more ripening daily.

No hestation next year, I'm spraying again and I suspect a lot of other people I know will be doing the same.

[Johnboy]

Hi Chantal,
I am delighted for you. Nothing nicer than a good crop, so satisfying after all the effort.
The one snag with all this is that it takes but one anti-chemical person on a site to put everyone's hard work in jeopardy.
You will not get blight on tomatoes until the potatoes in the vicinity become blighted. The nasty mycelium is hosted by the potato and not the tomato itself.
JB.

[Primrose]

Johnboy - that's an interesting comment about tomatoes not becoming blighted until potatoes in the vicinity come blighted. I'm really puzzled about that. Nobody around me grows vegetables at all (I'm probably regarded as a bit of a wierdo round here for bothering to do so) and I have one solitary potato plant, together with a self sown tomato plant on my compost heap, neither of which are showing any signs of blight. I realise it's a big "No, No" growing these two plants together in such close proximity but it was a sort of dangerous experiment to test the blight theory. So where would you reckon my tomato blight has come from?

[Johnboy]

Hi Primrose,
The Potato Blight spores become airborne and can travel over quite a distance. They prosper under certain weather conditions but they do not emanate from the Tomato as although Tomatoes are affected by blight there is nowhere in the Tomato for the mycelium to winter.
Like all mycelium they wait for the ideal conditions and pop up over a very short span of time. It only takes one mycelium to affect an entire crop.
This is why if a solution to the problem could be found through GM it would be a wonderful breakthrough. I say GM because if once a modification is found to be sound it can be transferred to many varieties in a comparatively short span of time but with normal hybridizing it is not possible because they have to create a new variety all the time this could take forever.
JB.