Keeping tomato plants dry

[Rob23b]

So I've been growing tomatoes from 5 or 10 years. Pretty much every time you read a list of growing tips, there's a comment about foliage diseases and trying to keep the leaves dry when you water.

I happen to grow tomatoes right next to my house (south facing wall). There's one spot that happens to be covered by an awning so the plant I put there gets very little rainfall on the foliage each year. This plant consistently grows well and keeps producing very late in the season.

So I started to wonder, maybe it would be worthwhile to put a (clear plastic) roof on top of all my tomato plants to keep them from getting much direct rainfall.

This is the first year where I built cages out of wire remesh. I'm already liking them a lot. A side benefit of these is that they are very sturdy and it would be simple to build a small roof for each with cheap wood and 6 mil greenhouse plastic. These could be attached to the wire cages with zip ties and easily stored each year in my garage. They would shield the tomato plants from most rain. I could easily run an irrigation system to the plants, if necessary. I already have all the tubing and drip emitters set up for my potted fig trees, so it would be easy to just send some to the tomatoes.

I could also use a trench type system so that the runoff from the sided of the mini roofs still went to the base of the tomato plants.

Thoughts? Has anyone tried this? Is it worth doing or just a waste of effort? Will it increase yield and extend the season?

Rob

Maryland