Allotments 4 All
Produce => Edible Plants => Topic started by: Deb P on September 12, 2020, 12:04:58
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....has wiped out my entire outdoor tomato crops at the lottie. I’m not surprised as it’s always a race to get a crop before it arrives but it’s still annoying!
All varieties have suffered equally, but Latah and Burbank bush ripened the quickest so I had great crops from them before they succumbed. I still managed to salvage three carrier bags full of sound ripe fruit to freeze and roast later on, I’ve learned not to bother trying to ripen anything else as most of it develops blight before it’s ripe so I don’t bother now.....🥴
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It's frustrating for you. With this weeks forcast they should have stood a chance if they had't already succumned.
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The day that all blighted plants have to be destroyed must count as the worst in the gardener's calendar. Such a shame Deb P :BangHead:
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Sorry to hear that, Deb, I've given up on outdoor tomatoes, couldn't stand the disappointment every year as a massive crop rotted overnight. This year I've cautiously got some in pots outside, up against the south facing house wall, and so far so good....
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Further up our site (With Deb P) the Roma have succumbed but the "basket/tub varieties seem to have shaken it off...
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I have found two self seeded Sungold amongst the sweetcorn have capitulated .As they are 'down wind' of the planted crop, I am hopeful that the majority may survive. A nervous visit today may be painful......
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Sorry to hear that, Deb, I've given up on outdoor tomatoes, couldn't stand the disappointment every year as a massive crop rotted overnight. This year I've cautiously got some in pots outside, up against the south facing house wall, and so far so good....
Funnily enough the six plants I shoved in pots at the rear of the plot when I ran out of room are blight free at the moment.....they are shaded under trees a bit so I’m guessing the rain doesn’t hit them as much as the ones in raised beds?
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I have found two self seeded Sungold amongst the sweetcorn have capitulated .As they are 'down wind' of the planted crop, I am hopeful that the majority may survive. A nervous visit today may be painful......
Update.
Indeed, the row of 8 plants within 3 metres are definately infected, I have some under cover which so far are OK. My Utah celery has a similar 'scorch' , is it susceptible to late blight?
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Mine have been ok up till now which is actually pretty good for around here. Often get a July hit on blight which means most folks have stopped growing toms completely.
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I haven’t know celery to get blight, flea beetle yes but my celery is fine at the moment!
I thought my leeks were looking a bit sorry for themselves, Saddad identified allium leaf fly....I’ve escaped that joy so far! Looks like it will have to be enviromesh covers from now on.....this years crop are all chopped to an inch high and hopefully will regenerate...🥴
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I've grown a variety named " mountain magic " for the last four years which is blight resistant. I have not had any problem with blight since then.
there are ten or twelve varieties of blight resistant tomatoes on the market, ranging from greenhouse, dwarf, standard and beefsteak. seeds are pricey so try the small interdependent seed houses as they are cheaper. I picked half a carrier bag of tomato's today.
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In our last garden and veg plot in Belgium I had very poor success with tomatoes whether grown outdoors or under cover because one year in 3 the field behind us had potatoes and and another year the field to our west had potatoes. I gave up.
In our first year here I cleverly bought and sowed far too many tomatoes and had loads outside and under cover as well as Charlottes which OH insisted I grew. We are surrounded by cattle pasture rotated as sweetcorn and wheat so happily had no blight till very late on and by then I'd had more tomatoes than I knew what do with and wasn't bothered and the crop was almost done. Not enough rain to have good Charlottes either so don't grow spuds any more.
Since then we have gradually reduced the number of plants we grow and increased the space between them and grown them all in the polytunnel and this year I've added a seep hose for watering rather than a hose spray or sprinkler and that has worked a treat. None of the plants have got sick with anything and the last trusses of cherry toms and green zebra are ripening very nicely.
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Yes, polytunnel and seep or drip hose helps enormously. I get some touches of blight in my polytunnel but the tomatoes themselves mostly remain unaffected.
I took up all my outdoor tomato plants yesterday. Nearly all had succumbed to the blight but one still stood tall and green. It was one with the unlikely name of Dancing with Smurfs (irresistible name!). It has lovely black and red tomatoes. So it lives on to hopefully ripen some more.
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When nights are below 10C blight and days are not much warner, blight is no longer active. Often cherry tomatoes can hang on for a bit longer and live into that period where it is too cold for blight, but not frosty yet. It can be worthwhile to take blighted leaves away in the hope for this short time in order to harvest the last few set tomatoes
:wave:
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And of course some tomatoes are much more blight resistant than others. So DwS is a good example of a resistant tomato. :wave:
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My sympathies, finding the dreaded blight splotch really is one of the most dispiriting sights - especially when it turns up before a decent harvest. Last year my outdoor allotment crop suffered terribly from blight but the Black Beauty variety fared better than all others. I believe BB and DwS share a common ancestor in the purple peruvianium - perhaps some blight tolerance was inherited from this wild progenitor. Geranium Kiss is another with wild genetics that is said to be blight resistant.
That said, I agree the best line of defense is growing under cover. Some organic market gardener friends had crops into late October-Nov just by growing in tunnels.
There is some evidence that Trichoderma fungus parasitises and inhibits the growth of P. infestans, as well as enhancing systemic resistance in plants.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12230-015-9475-3
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1049964412002551
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.jafc.0c03150
https://academicjournals.org/journal/AJAR/article-full-text/E2C4DE057019
Isolated Trichoderma spores are readily available and one can multiply their own supply quite easily with a plastic container and steamed rice or other sterilised grain/husk substrates.
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Very interesting, Vetivert. Do you know of anyone experimenting with this on a small allotment scale?