Blight resistant Tommy seed varieties help.

[gazza1960]

As this was our 1st season from seed,we brought various tommies just because they looked Ok and not because they were F1,s or bred due to being hardy against the various plagues that bring em to their knees.

so,we, like it seems half the nation of Plotters out there suffered at the hands of blight which was something new to us and indeed it wiped out all our tommies even the ones under glass.

I have read a couple of posts here and there about blight resistant types and would be willing to try them if
you guys have maybe given em a whirl already with any success.

I guess we eat 50% small sweet types and 50% Gardeners delight size really so if there are any blight free varieties similar to those gimme a shout and we,ll give em a go next term.

Incidently our whole allotment suffered,not just us...but all our tatters were blight free so at least we knew
it didnt cross contaminate from them.

any thoughts or examples  ????

Cheers

GaznJude

[gazza1960]

[gazza1960]

Ok,I did me own homework.

The following are types that have been successful elsewhere so Ill use these as my target seeds me thinks.

Fantasio £2.84 (suttons)
Ferline    £2.89 (suttons)
Legend   £2 29 (Thompson & Morgan)
Koralik    £1.69 (Sowseeds)

Job done,let ya know what happens end of next season.

GazNjude

[Ellen K]

don't be like that!  and - you missed Losetto from T&M, it is a cherry tomato suitable for hanging baskets and the A4A-ers who grew it this year recommend it.

[Ellen K]

I've grown Legend these past 2 years,  it is a bush tomato and you don't get that many fruit from a plant, though they are nice enough.

Do you spray with anything?

[galina]

Ok,I did me own homework.

The following are types that have been successful elsewhere so Ill use these as my target seeds me thinks.

Fantasio £2.84 (suttons)
Ferline    £2.89 (suttons)
Legend   £2 29 (Thompson & Morgan)
Koralik    £1.69 (Sowseeds)

Job done,let ya know what happens end of next season.

GazNjude

Legend is definitely a good buy as is Koralik because they are open pollinated and you can squidge a few seeds from good plants onto a paper towel, label, store and sow next year.  More elegant fermenting the seeds, but 'squidge and stick'  is fine for your own use.

Now comes the problem.  Legend can be anything from very blight resistant to not very  much, it depends on the year and on the type of blight that happens to be predominant at the moment. 

This year was pretty good in terms of little blight overall, in our drought ridden area, but I had a few Ferline and those plants perished early on.  Wrong type of blight for Ferline, I guess.  The last good looking ones were Red Currant type 'Sweetie' tomatoes.  We harvested the last fruits in October.  I wouldn't have classed 'Sweetie' as very blight resistant, but they were good this year outside, not in the GH.  PM if you'd like seeds.  No promises on how they do for you. mind .................... ;D

[Ellen K]

... and I can send some F1s so PM me your address too.

No guarantees with blight resistance but I'll send you a sachet of dithane too if you want  :)

[gazza1960]

""don't be like that""

not at all Ellen k,I didnt mean to type impatiently,I was just Googling around and found some good options.
and decided to add to my Question with a little extra content.

but blow me,thats a learning curve then as you and Galina have both tried some of what I found and still the blight
issues are a menace some seasons.

I did find this from an old post from one of our members..............

"""Tomato blight spores will infect any tomato tissue on which they land, and any which land on the fruit can (and probably will) infect the fruit, and rot develops at the infected sites and quickly consumes the whole fruit.  Furthermore, in certain conditions of alternating dryness and wetness there is a two way transference of moisture between the fruit and the rest of the plant, so a blight spore landing on an untreated fruit could infect the whole of an otherwise protected plant"""
So I guess there are no guarantees,and NO we have not sprayed anything on our toms as yet.

The only thing I used was a folia spray made from sea weed water and a feed of tommarite every now and then,but being new to the lotty probs we never tried any chemical sprays to deter blight or any other nasty.

so thank you for the offer but well see how we go without adding any chem sprays to the tommies FOR NOW  !!!!!!!!!!

Cheers

Gazza

[antipodes]

Bordeaux mixture does protect to some extent, at least for early blight. It is a chemical but is safe for organic gardening.

[Robert_Brenchley]

It might be better to say that it's tolerated for organic gardening as it's traditional (which seems to make a big difference) and there's nothing better available to amateurs. Copper sulphate isn't non-poisonous; when I was a kid I exterminated all the bindweed in a garden full of it with some I nicked from the chemistry labs at school.

[galina]

but blow me,thats a learning curve then as you and Galina have both tried some of what I found and still the blight
issues are a menace some seasons.
.........

The only thing I used was a folia spray made from sea weed water and a feed of tommarite every now and then,but being new to the lotty probs we never tried any chemical sprays to deter blight or any other nasty.

It is the old story of blight resistant does not mean immune to blight.  And I believe at the moment there is more blight resistance in potatoes (the Sarpo range and a few others) than in tomatoes.  Legend has been bred in the USA, where most years blight is far less of a problem than in the UK, not sure where the others have been bred.

With regards to foliar sprays I know that opinions are divided, but I would not.  The worst enemy for tomatoes is damp foliage.  If you can keep them dry, you've won.  Never wetting the leaves, watering the soil not the plants, leaving the greenhouse door open and all the vents.  With a polytunnel you need to be careful that the condensation run-off does not drip onto the tomatoes, ie plant them nearer the middle and ventilate well.  Keeping them dry has helped me more than buying blight resistant varieties, although (like you are planning to) I certainly tried that too  :)  Blight spores are everywhere and will land on your tomatoes, but it needs sustained moisture to activate them.

A third measure against blight is to look at ultra early tomatoes.  Websites from the USA can be useful, because they give a guide of days to maturity.  Mind you, they say DTM 50 days (which translates as: grow them indoors until the flowers are in bud - 6-8 weeks - then 50 days after transplanting out start harvesting) and 50 days here usually means 75 days or thereabouts because of lower sun angles, cooler summers etc.  But you can take their DTM numbers as relative, because a 45 DTM tomato will probably bear a lot of fruit before blight strikes, whereas a 90 DTM will most likely be wiped out by blight in the UK, before a single fruit matures.  Bloody Butcher is one variety that is really early, very tasty and useful before blight.  Also Latah and Stupice some rave about.  Red Alert isn't bad either.  Again, no guarantees that any of them will produce abundantly for you next year.  

I have never sprayed copper, which as Robert says isn't all that good for us anyway.  Have experimented with piercing the stems of tomatoes with fine copper wire, but that was simply not effective against blight.

One effective way of salvaging tomatoes is to harvest all good sized green fruit at the first sign of blight and ripen them off indoors on the windowsill.  Not quite as tasty, but perfectly ok for cooking.  You need to be quick about it, because you will have significant post harvest losses if you don't strip the plants fast.

Just wanted to say that it is 50% doing the right thing and 50% of living with blight and accepting losses.  Some years are better than others.

[gazza1960]

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/5419044/the_best_growing_tomatoes_does_using.html

That was the original link I read about the sea weed Galina and me being a sea angler I started to bring home
bags of it,some would be put as mulch around the tatters but I always concentrated a bucket(horrid smell) and
filtered it through muslin cloth and folia sprayed the tommies early doors.
To be honest,I dont know if the plants were growing "naturally" on their own or whether the spray assisted
with their young growth as up untill the blight hit our plot the tommies were going great guns although once fruits had set I didnt feel the need to spray the foliage anymore, its just when I read above that all the nutrients in seaweed benefit plants and having a free supply I have been trialling it.
As mentioned to you before I will experiment in the poly next season Folia spraying some Toms and not on others
to keep them dry and see what happens.
It will be a Poly learning curve  !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I think you have something with the early crop Idea,as it was our 1st season of blight losses we didnt give it a thought that later in the season when the fruits are still green(majority) the blight would affect all in a 2 week cycle.
We did salvage a few lb,s and redden off loads in the windows and yes I did chutney bloomin lb,s of it.

Cheers for the suggested early plant types to have a crack at though..... ;)

Gazza

[Ellen K]

I'm not sure I understand that article. Tomato plants have their feeder roots near the top of the root system and watering the seaweed extract in there is fine.  And I am with Galina: keeping the foliage dry and airy helps prevent blight taking hold.  So feeding by spraying the foliage is a no no.  I wouldn't do it.

[gazza1960]

hmmmmm  the more I read into the pros and cons im still like a lot I guess undecided as to the merits of folia spraying,the following artcle seems to pore scorn on the idea as well,but it seems to give merit to root feeding as being of benefit purely from minerals adding to growth stimulation...and when transplanting...then in another sentence it appears to say " it really does b*gger all....dont ya luv opinion.... ???

http://www.puyallup.wsu.edu/~linda%20chalker-scott/Horticultural%20Myths_files/Myths/Seaweed%20extracts.pdf

[goodlife]

I had bligt resistant tomato bed going on this year..but there haven't been blight around.. ::)..sods law.. ::)
Varieties that I grew are said to be blight tolerant/resistant:
Quadro
Golden Currant
Ferline
Mexico Midget
Legend
Celebrity
Losetto
Old Brooks
Plum Regal
Mountain Magic
Defiant
Mount Baker
I've recently come across few other varieties as well..but my memory doesn't work at the moment and I haven't bought them..yet..

[BarriedaleNick]

Blight appears to be endemic on our site and many growers have simply given up with open air toms.
However for the last few years I have had little or no blight and the blight is late if I get it.

I spray with Copper Sulphate - normally just twice in the season.  I also plant out early (got mullered last year by a late frost!) and only plant out the plants that look absolutely healthy.
I know some don't like the idea of Copper Sulphate and I can understand that but without it there is no point at all in growing toms on my site. 

Last year I grew Black Krim, Sungold, San Marzarno, Shirley and some early variety I cant recall and they all got through with no blight...

[gazza1960]

Top replies to the Q,It seems there are plenty of blight resistant varieties,but just depends on your location,wet and dry conditions encouraging it,and keeping GH plants well aired and dry.....plenty of food for thought.

Cheers all   ............. ;)

GazNjude

[galina]

The trouble with spraying seaweed is that in this country nothing dries that quickly.  In other countries (like for example Greece where our holiday washing dried in less than an hour!), foliar spraying delivers nutrients right to the leaves and dries so fast that blight does not get a look-in.  Good idea.

UK conditions are different.  Seaweed is a very beneficial feed for tomatoes (as is comfrey and nettle 'tea'), just the foliar application is a bit dodgy.  Not sure where the author of the article you quoted hails from.

[goodlife]

Yep..seaweed sprays are widely advertized..but I would only use it during dry and hot weather..how much weather like that we really get?.. ::)
I use seaweed a lot..but I never ever spray anything on my tomato plants..hot or not..I keep the leaves dry on surface and leave the seaweed to  be applied by watering can and straight on to the soil. I don't usually have any major problems with blight in GH when not splashing about on plants.

[Jayb]

I found Koralik good this year, resistance was excellent and they produced a good crop despite blight being on my plottie. Last year they did not do so well when Late blight was about. Lossetto also did well as did Mountain Magic which was tasty and sweet (although I think this is only available from US).

I bought Bio-grow and SB Plant Invigorator this year to try and boost health and combat LB. Although in the end I didn't get around to using them, I'll have to wait until next year to see if they are effective. I think they sound a bit too good  :-\

Links if anyone is interested in reading more http://www.marshalls-seeds.co.uk/bio-gro-plant-health-invigorator-250ml-pid4827.html
www.sbproducts.co.uk