tomato blight

[ruffles.pip]

I know it's a bit early (or late!) to be talking about blight but I've only just discovered this forum. Last year was my first go at having an allotment and I had decided to grow as many tomato varieties as possible in order to find MY perfect tomato - (you know, 20 varieties this year- I don't like 10, 2 are brilliant, so grow these 2 next year and try another 18) Anyway, they got the dreaded blight around July and one of my fellow allotmenteers advised me to pick what was on the plants as quickly as possible. I managed to continue growing and picking for another SIX WEEKS. What I did was to religiously cut off every bit of blackened leaf every morning and evening and this obviously slowed down the spread of the disease. OK, not everybody has this much time, but I reckon this has shown that blight doesn't have to be that devastating.PS I also got clubroot on my broccoli and was scaremongered into carefully destroying 2 plants - I thought I'd leave the others after thinking about my tomates and WHAT DO YOU THINK?  It's now the end of Feb and my broccoli looks bloody brilliant!! My advice here is to take advice but try your own thing - had I have listened to all that was told me, I would have no tomatoes and no broccoli.

[ruffles.pip]

[Robert_Brenchley]

I'm doing the same as you as regards tomato varieties - are you growing them indoors or out by the way? Unfortunately I can't control blight the same way as work gets too onerous!

[tim]

Blight seems to strike so harshly that there's not much you can do to rescue things. Botrytis, on the other hand, which can appear like blight, does seem to allow you some leeway?

Whichever, I'm sure that the sooner you burn the affected bits the better.

[Rhubarb Thrasher]

Hi

July is a bit early for the late blight i'd have thought. Maybe it was early blight or like Tim says, botrytis. I had something that looked similar on a couple of tomatoes maybe even earlier, and they coped (without me doing anything). I did notice that when the late blight did strike, self sown seedlings of one variety were unaffected, when the ones i'd grown at home were all killed

I agree completely with the club root. I have it. When a plant is infected, the leaves droop down, and the stem bends, but then the plant generally recovers to give you a useful crop. Once you've got it, you've got it, and if you want to grow brassicas, you've got to put up with it

[jennym]

Get tomato blight here (north of London) regular as clockwork every year. It normally strikes aroung mid August onwards. Some plants are more affected than others, and I've found that a bit of a windbreak delays it (all my tomatoes are grown outdoors). Normally, find that if plants are checked daily from about mid August, I can keep picking, but as soon as signs are there they all get picked and taken home to ripen. This way not so many get lost to the blight.

[Curryandchips]

Reckon I may lose the majority of my outdoor crops this year, since I am on holiday from the middle of august ...

The good news? At least I will be in Crete ... :D

Derek  8)

[BAK]

Some outdoor varieties seem to cope better than others. We have found that Tamina seems to have some resistance. It seems to cope better than other varieties.

We spray with a copper fungicide once a fortnight from end of June - it provides a physical barrier. We also go round a couple of times a week and remove any dodgy-looking foliage.

There was a new variety in 2006, Fantasio (Suttons), which is advertised as having resistance. We treated one half of the plants as above but did not spray the other half. The plants that were not sprayed succumbed, albeit about 2 weeks (mid Sept) later than everybody elses on our site. The sprayed/defoliated plants survived reasonably well.

We also grow Tornado - have done for 20 years - but it is quite prone to blight unless it is "looked after".

[Robert_Brenchley]

I think I'll have to use Bordeaux mix if we get damp weather this year; I've had my crop blighted two years running, and however little I like putting copper on my crops, I've had enough of it!

[Tee Gee]

I'm no expert on the subject but I think watering has an indirect part to play.

To explain;

Blight spores are wind borne and if things (leaves/plants) are quite dry the spores have less chance of adhering to the leaves/plants. Therefore if spraying say for pollination purposes as some experts advocate then this could be a contributary factor.

I never water potatoes for this reason and when watering my tomatoes I have a 5" plant pot sunk at the base of each plant and I water into this, thus avoiding contact with the leaves.

Plus I give as much ventilation as possible to keep air on the move and humidity low.

Touch wood I am generally free of the problem with tomatoes but not always with potatoes. I put this down to the fact that a quick rain shower can defeat all I have tried to achieve.

As I say I am no expert on the subject this is just my theory based on what I know about the fungus.

[BAK]

I generally agree with Tee Gee. However, I do not spray (for pollination) and I also water into 5 inch pots sunk into the ground .. and still I get it. Probably the only person on our site who tends not to suffer is a gentleman who grows them under his self-made polytunnel (he does this based on the theory of the spores being driven on by the wind, as Tee Gee indicates).

I agree with the rain theory. I have noticed that in generally dry summers there is little or no blight. In wetter summers it is likely to appear earlier, as early as mid to late July in one bad year.

I wonder if it also varies depending on where you are in the UK.?

[Robert_Brenchley]

You only normally get outbreaks in damp weather. Last summer it only appeared after the drought ended.