Heirloom susceptibility to disease?

[b54red]

Since I have fusarium fairly widespread in my garden and have for the entire time I have gardened there, I can attest to some hybrids having significantly more resistance than most of the OPs. That being said I still find OPs that do very well and some that do terrific despite being planted in spots known for their heavy fusarium presence.
I was advised many years ago by the county extension service to only plant hybrids with strong fusarium resistance and I followed those directions for years but gradually tired of the sameness of the hybrids and started trying out many OPs on a limited scale and for the most part the extension agent was right. Most of the OPs died without ever producing any fruit but there were a few exceptions and so I started expanding the number of OPs and reducing the fusarium resistant hybrids. Last year I went crazy and planted over 70 varieties of OPs that I had never grown before and when one died of fusarium I would replace it in the same spot with another variety of OP immediately. Many of the replacements died just as fast or faster but some flourished in the fusarium tainted spot. I am trying to do the same thing this year except with even more varieties. I am also replanting the varieties that did well last year so I can see if it was just a fluke. Now if the TSWV, Early and Late Blight, along with that black crud that hits the black tomatoes will take it easy this year I could have a good test going. So far I have found about 20 OPs that have sufficient fusarium resistance to produce a good crop before succumbing to the disease as most of the hybrids do also.

I had a couple of plants that continued to produce for months after getting TSWV and I saved the seed to see if that trait will be passed down. Most plants including the hybrids died rather quickly from TSWV once symptoms first appeared. I did notice one thing about TSWV last year and that was that it tended to hit the tomatoes with the lighter colored foliage far worse than the darker colored plants. I also had no TSWV on any of the black tomatoes but that all could just have been a matter of luck. I am trying one of the TSWV resistant varieties of hybrid tomato this year for the first time to see how it tastes if it survives long enough.

[feldon30]

For some reason, nobody really seems to be putting in the research/testing in trying to eradicate Verticillium or Fusarium from soil at least for tomato gardening.

I've been slapped around on gardening forums for giving (or repeating) advice on topics which I do not have personal experience. I may still get raked over hot coals, but just please realize I am NOT speaking from experience here...



Dazitol is a mustard-based, organic soil drench used against Root Knot Nematodes and is also listed to have some effectiveness against soilborne fungus.

Actinovate is a possible approach to "out-compete" the bad funguses, and this website (link) lists Fusarium.

RootShield is listed for fusarium control.

MycoStop is another OMRI organic product which is listed for fusarium control.


I looked at Exel LG, which is the first systemic organic fungicide, but I believe its claim to fame is foliar and root rot so it would be great for Early Blight and the dreaded Late Blight, but not so much on V of F.


Again, I don't know the efficacy of ANY of these products against Verticillium or Fusarium, but the point is, 10 years ago there were no solutions. You had to stick to the same hybrids year after year, or rotate crops, or do some serious soil fumigation. And I have to think that some combination of the products above might kick some Fusarium or Verticillium butt. Unfortunately, it's hard to find some of these products as they are made up in small batches. It's still difficult to compete against the big chemical companies with organic alternatives.

I'm glad I don't live in an area affected by them, but if I was, I would be trying these products, especially since they're organic.


Again, I do not have any experience with V/F/N or any of these products, and normally I would not post about them, but I just didn't want to see this thread get ignored if there are products which might help. Hopefully one of the many people who are far more knowledgeable about these products than me will shed some light.

[feldon30]

Here's another thread, this one about Fusarium Race 3:

http://www.tomatoville.com/showthread.php?t=13315

[barkeater]

b54,

Do you have a list of the 20 OP's you found with resistance to fusarium?

[b54red]

barkeater, this was just a one year experiment so I wouldn't count on the results yet. Many of the varieties mentioned below still got fusarium and most eventually died from it or something else but they did produce abundantly. Most of these got multiple plantings in different locations and most had the same results despite the different locations.

The ones showing the strongest resistance or the best production despite getting fusarium last year were in order of resistance:

Indian Stripe
JDs Special C Tex
Neves Azorean Red
Berkley Tie Dye Pink
Old Virginia
Gary O' Sena
Marianna's Peace
Kosovo
Linnie's Oxheart
Pale Perfect Purple


The ones below showed some tolerance and still produced well enough before dying to be worth replanting if you like their taste and are in no particular order:

Stump of the World
Limbaugh's Legacy
Gregori's Altai
KBX
Black Krim
Donskoi
Cowlick's Brandywine
Royal Hillbilly
Akers West Virginia
Pruden's Purple
Stupice
Red Siberian
Mortgage Lifter


These showed little in the way of resistance but still managed to make a small to medium crop before dying:

Noire de Crimmee
Druzba
Rostova
Hege German Pink
German Red Strawberry
Noire de Crimee


The ones below got multiple plantings and all died without producing more than a couple of small fruits. These are listed starting with the absolute worst:

Coustralee
Reif Red Heart
Costoluto Genovese
Delicious
Heinz 1370
Mrs. Benson
Orange Heirloom
Golden Ponderosa
Aunt Gertie's Gold
Break O Day
Green Zebra
Paul Robeson ( I did get one plant to produce very moderately but since this one got almost a dozen plantings in the last 2 years it made the worst list)


The ones that didn't make any of these lists were ones that didn't get more than one or two plantings and thus did not get a fair test in my garden. I will be planting many of the above varieties again this year and try to keep up with the fusarium problems by variety again. Some of the ones that did pretty good won't make the cut for me because of their taste or lack thereof. I could of course just plant 4 or 5 of the more successful varieties but then I would be back to having very little variety like I had with the fusarium resistant hybrids.

I tried the Root Sheild in an experiment last year and the results were inconclusive at best. I treated all of my early plantings this year and also added BiotaMax to the regimen to see if it makes any difference but I think the best results will come from varieties that tolerate the disease from what I have observed so far.

The plants in my garden look fantastic right now and I am dreading the first signs of fusarium which should start appearing in the next month as the weather warms up. I need to get busy planting more seed so I will have replacements for the inevitable losses to come.

[carolyn137]

About Root Shield.

When it first came out about 10 years ago there was a person at the message site where I was at that time who e-mailed the company that produced it and a woman scientist there e-mailed back and said that it had not been tested against Fusarium and it was developed to help prevent root rot for commercial large scale flower growers.

And if you look at a Google search you'll see that the majoirty of the links are directed against using it in that manner.

About Fusarium.

There are three races and no cross immunity and most folks have no idea which races or races they're dealing with although race three is the least common, to date. Whatever the race or races the fungi are not evenly dispersed in a planting area so some varieties will do OK and some will not.

And since the symptoms for Fusarium and Verticillium are quite similar it's often hard to tell which of the two, or both, are a problem.

The genes that give tolerance, not resistance, for the three races were isolated and used in the construction of many hybrid varieties, and not for the home grower but for the large scale farmer and that's b/c with just a week or more growth, which is all that those genes can provide, it helps the farmer b'c that extra time can result in higher Brix readings which is how they determine when to start harvesting.

I can check this out but I seem to remember that the genes for Fusarium tolerance are from one of the species, so it would not be all that common to have many of our garden tomatoes have tolerance to it, depending on their genetic backgrounds.

Also, infection is dose dependent so that's why challenge testing is done with a known amount of Fusarium and controls of known susceptibles and known tolerant varieties before any hybrid can have that F or FF or FFF next to their name.

I don't have to contend with Fusarium where I live but I sure do have lots of tomato friends who do, whether it's from about NC down to FL, then along the Gulf Coast states and then up into CA.

Races 1 and 2 are most common and are multi-genic meaning that mroe than one gene participates in tolerance to race 1 and the same for race 2. The probability that an OP heirloom would have somehow inherited the maxi,um number of genes for race 1 or 2 I think would be very low.

Fusarium CAN be spread via airborne transmission. Which was not news to Craig L in NC who has had a real problem with Fusarium.

Hope the above helps at least somewhat.

And pockets of it do appear here in the north and sometimes it's due to purchased plants whose roots are colonized with it as transplants that are shipped to areas where it's new. But since Fusarium is one of those soilborne diseases that can't overwinter where the ground freezes deeply, it usually doesn't become a permanent problem.

[feldon30]

Ok so strike RootShield off the list.

What's left?

Having to pick and choose tomato varieties for Fusarium "tolerance" (which according to your own description won't extend one's season indefinitely but only for a few weeks) seems like not much of an option.

Craig L. throwing in the towel on his in-ground garden beds and switching to containers which are geographically isolated by means of being on his asphalt driveway is starting to sound like sage advice!

[b54red]

Feldon, I haven't given up on RootShield yet since I tried it on all of my plants so far this year. If I see some improvement over last year then I think it might be worth using again.
As for giving in and planting everything in containers, forget about it. Down here containers need watering twice a day and sometimes even more on hot windy days and the tomatoes just don't taste as good nor do they get nearly as large. I have major problems with fusarium but I overcome them by planting a lot of tomatoes and by staggering the plantings and I usually make more than we need. I also keep a large number of seedlings ready to replace the ones that die. I usually can find one variety or another that will survive in that very spot where the previous plant died of fusarium. When it gets mid summer I will also start adding Big Beef to my plantings because of its strong resistance to fusarium and it is a decent tomato for a hybrid. This year I have started seed for over 100 varieties and I know before I start that most will die of either fusarium or TSWV; but I should still make enough tomatoes to fill the freezer with sauce and give away a few hundred. Last year despite losing at least half of my tomato plants before they made ripe fruit, I had the largest production I have ever had in over 35 years of gardening. I quit counting full size tomatoes after 1500 and I still had all of my fall tomatoes to go.

[Duh_Vinci]

B54red - thank you for putting together a list!

There are few spots in my garden where fusarium gets the plants about half way through the season. Your varieties with observation of tolerance/resistance and new to me mix I'll be trying with Actinovate and Biotamax (which has trichoderma, which based on some reports, it assist the plants in fighting this "evil") - I will be ready to try it indeed!

Regards,
D