Late Blight coming our way?

[Fusion_power]

I'm looking forward to next year. I plan on having at least 100 plants of late blight tolerant lines growing. From this year, I selected 3 plants derived from crosses Randy Gardner made. One of them was 9.0 flavor and is a deep red from having a chocolate colored parent. Two others have are 8.0 and 8.5 respectively with nice pink fruit, one dense but with nice flavor from the seed gel, the other softer and delicious texture, flavor, and aroma. These plants have easily withstood heavy pressure from Early Blight and septoria. We haven't had Late Blight, so I don't know if they will have tolerance to it.

DarJones

[b54red]

Dar, I'm a couple of hundred miles south of you and have seen Late Blight twice in 35 years of gardening. It struck once in late summer and once in the fall. It seems to be a much more likely problem in the North than down here but from what I saw it will kill any tomato plant once it gets established well. I had some fairly good luck with the bleach spray last year; but I only think it helped because I sprayed every plant in my garden immediately upon recognizing it and then repeated the spray a couple of times a week to keep any spores from getting started again. Every other disease I have dealt with is relatively slow moving compared to this stuff. The first time I saw it years ago it moved very fast to affect every plant in my garden within two weeks despite multiple fungicide sprays.

I think the reason so few people see Late Blight down here is the paltry number of gardeners still growing tomatoes in late summer and fall. I had never seen it until I started setting out tomato plants in mid summer for fall tomatoes. Most gardeners I know are through with tomatoes by mid July and don't go to the trouble of trying to grow fall tomatoes.

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by Jeannine Anne

Than you Carolyn.. given that it is not very effective and my plants have not yet had any moisture on the leaves am I better to take my chances then wet the leaves with a copper spray..

XX Jeannine

I think you said you live near Tania and she said that all her tomatoes and potatoes went down with Late Blight.

With that in mind if it were me I think I'd do my best with the copper. Surely you have AM dew on the foliage sometimes as well as rain from time to time so I don't find a spray with copper to be that much of a problem in getting the foliage wet and it should dry fairly quickly.

[carolyn137]

I think the reason so few people see Late Blight down here is the paltry number of gardeners still growing tomatoes in late summer and fall. I had never seen it until I started setting out tomato plants in mid summer for fall tomatoes. Most gardeners I know are through with tomatoes by mid July and don't go to the trouble of trying to grow fall tomatoes.

******

Bill, Late Blight ( P. infestans) can appear early OR late in the season, despite the name. All it takes are the right conditions, usually cool and rainy, and spores in the area to initiate infection. A good way of tracking LB here in the NE is to tune into the Cornell Late Blight website , which is excellent.

Likewise, Early Blight ( A. solani), can also appear either early or late in the season. And is very common as you know and while a problem, it can be dealt with and isn't lethal, as LB usually is.

[casserole]

Are there Late Blight resistant varieties ? What are some of the names?

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by casserole

Are there Late Blight resistant varieties ? What are some of the names?

http://www.longislandhort.cornell.ed..._varieties.pdf

....from Cornell, and I've grown the two that Randy Gardner bred and were mentioned but no chance to assess the tolerance to LB since my garden escaped that huge LB outbreak a couple of years ago.

Note that the article clearly says that there are no resistant varieties, I think they used the words no varieties immune to LB, which is why I use the word tolerance and have done so and will continue to do so for every disease that's known to affect tomatoes.

I have seen West Virginia 63 mentioned but no definite feedback.

And those who have grown Legend in the PNW where LB is always a problem have not been impressed, from feedback I've seen with either the LB tolerance or taste of it.

But the varieties developed by Dr. Gardner have newer LB tolerance genes.

And I know that more varieties will be forthcoming from Dr. Gardners breeding projects that have LB tolerance as well but I don't know when. I also know that quite a few not so amateur breeders are using Mountain Magic F1 to breed with other varieties to introduce LB tolerance.

[dice]

Tania had Legend growing this year. She said it had *no* lesions while
Late Blight killed every other kind of tomato plant in the same bed.
(I do not know about flavor, productivity, etc. She said that Legend
is not an early variety.)

I have a couple plants of Defiant PhR F1 growing this year
( http://www.johnnyseeds.com/p-8473-defiant-phr-f1.aspx ).
I have no Late Blight, but it has been a very healthy plant
that has grown well in cooler than average temperatures
and shows no disease symptoms of any kind.

[Jeannine Anne]

I started Defiant, Plum Regal, Mountain Magic, Losetto, Lizzano,Ferline and Legend this year for our community garden transplants but due to a hiccup the ones I saved for myself died off as babies when I couldn't get to the onsite greenhouse.. Fortunatley my other tomatoes were still at home

I am still waiting for reports from the community to see how the transplants that they got from me for the blight resistant ones did.

Caroyln, all my tomatoes are in a greenhouse with great ventilation and they are in Global bucktets so the foliage has not been wet at anytime.No dew etc.

Tania is about 6 miles maybe from our community gardens that is all but the gardens themselves have the blight now. My greenhouse plants are still OK as of yesterday.

XX Jeannine

[Tania]

As dice already mentioned, I have two Legend plants that survived the LB devastation (they grew in pots and were not protected from rain). They look healthy (as of today), and have quite a few small fruits that are still far away from ripening. I hope the taste is decent, as these will be my home-grown tomatoes this year, in addition to the dwarfs that Jeannine brought me. None of the other plants that I grew in pots unprotected survived the blight, they died very quickly, in 2-4 days after the first sign of the infection.

Among the GH varieties that were killed, some (about 5-7) plants started to put out some new green growth, and the 'best' looking ones are bi-colors and Santa Cruz Cada which looks quite healthy and have a few fruits that I hope will ripen by the end of the season. Dr. Neals are barely alive, but I am keeping them as the plants have a few fruits that may mature. This is out of 400+ plants I had there.

On the balcony I have 4 'survivors': Banana Legs, Hayslip, Lyuda's Mom's Ukrainian, and Alice's Egypt. They were partially protected from the direct rain, and this is why (I think) they are still alive. After the affected foliage (read: half of the plants) was removed (July 15) and weather got dry, they recovered and continued to grow.

Banana Legs are loaded with fruits, so I am hopeful for some seed saving opportunity here. Hayslip has only 3 fruits, same as Lyuda's and Alice's.

Jeannine's dwarfs are setting more fruit, and I am hoping the plants will survive long enough to mature these.

[Tania]

Oh, I also have West Virginia 63 which is not completely dead in a greenhouse.

[Tania]

Jeannine, I am hoping everything is still good in your community garden after the rain started last night. It is going to be a cool day, and I am worried if the local gardens will start seeing the late blight now.

When I heard the rain last night, I got up and brought your buckets with the dwarfs inside, just to be safe! God bless you for what you have done for me, bringing them in.

It is cold and moist here in Anmore this morning. Cabbages and beets will love it, I am sure.

Tania