disease resistance

[rick9748]

I live in South Carolina, hot and humid +s every disease.The one that last all Summer to Fall is Big Beef.Large tomato with good taste.

[b54red]

Originally Posted by Fusion_power

There are a few diseases in your area that are uncommon elsewhere. Here are a few varieties to trial.

Burgundy Traveler - this is a deep pink slicer that will produce a decent crop of tomatoes.

Big Beef - Already suggested, has VFNT and excellent flavor

Amelia - This one is TSWV resistant

Creole - Not the best textured tomato, but it can stand your heat and still produce

Heidi - Paste, Does very well in the heat and can handle quite a bit of disease pressure

Eva Purple Ball - Consistent production of round pink tomatoes


Carolyn, There is a scientifically accepted definition for resistance and tolerance.
Resistance - the ability of a host to restrict or prevent disease or pest infection
Tolerance - the ability of a host to limit the damage caused by a given disease or pest

It is appropriate to speak of resistance to nematodes while understanding that this does not mean immunity. It is appropriate to speak of tolerance to septoria understanding that a plant infected with septoria can grow faster than septoria can spread under some conditions.

"According to Schneider and Ayres (Schneider, D. S., & Ayres, J. S. 2008). Two ways to survive infection: What resistance and tolerance can teach us about treating infectious diseases. Nature Reviews Immunology, 8, 889–895. doi:10.1038/nri2432), resistance and tolerance are two separate major pathways for survival to infestations. Raberg, Graham, and Read ( Raberg, L., Graham, A. L., & Read, A. F. (2009). Decomposing health: tolerance and resistance to parasites in animals. Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 364, 37–49.10.1098/rstb.2008.0184) define resistance as “the ability of a host to limit parasite burden” and tolerance as the ability of a host “to limit the damage caused by a given parasite burden”. They state that the advantage of their definitions is that resistance and tolerance can be considered both independently and in parallel."

You are right about tolerance vs resistance and I guess we all should all use the word tolerance when referring to diseases and how plants handle them; but long before any amateur like me discussed these problems the seed companies were using the word resistance to describe tolerance and not being very scientifically informed I like most just use the familiar term of resistance to describe either trait. I am probably too old a dog to teach a new trick. I know that no matter the term very few heirlooms have true resistance to fusarium but some will tolerate it more than others. I still believe from my own experience and success with Big Beef over the years that growing it is the best alternative unless he has all three types of fusarium in which case I think learning to graft would be the best solution.

Amelia is as close to a resistant tomato to fusarium as I have ever grown; but even they sometimes succumb to the disease. My biggest problem with them is they just don't have much tomato flavor. They do make some nice looking tomatoes and I have never had one fall to TSWV. I'm not as up on the local commercial growers as I should be but Amelia was their favored variety once TSWV and that third race of fusarium moved into our area. Before that there were many varieties that did well with just the tolerance to two races of fusarium like Big Beef, Bella Rosa, Celebrity and many more and most of them were at least decent tasting. Since I started grafting onto highly resistant or tolerant root stock and have had the advantage of being able to grow heirlooms more successfully I haven't kept up with the latest and greatest hybrids nor do I wish to. No matter what the hype I have always found myself disappointed with the final product when I have grown these hybrid super tomatoes; but maybe one day they will come up with one that is tasty, juicy, super resistant to everything and not hard as a baseball; but I wouldn't hold my breath. I think these tomatoes are being developed solely with the commercial grower in mind and the traits that I find awful are just what they are looking for.

I did have some luck with a few heirlooms over the years but never found even one that showed true resistance to fusarium. I did have some luck with Neves Azorean Red, Indian Stripe, Spudakee and a few others but some years none of them seemed to be able to handle the fusarium onslaught very well. I spent a lot of time and effort replacing tomatoes throughout the season and trying one thing after another to build up my soil in a vain effort to cure my fusarium problem with little or no positive results for the most part. I did notice the only thing that consistently helped was a very cold winter which is so rare down here that the breaks provided by it were just too sporadic and didn't last very long.

Bill

[carolyn137]

They state that the advantage of their definitions is that resistance and tolerance can be considered both independently and in parallel."

&&&&&

Which is what I've been saying forever and giving examples. Yet many places are still saying resistant for almost all tomato diseases. What that does is to misinform those who don't know that much about diseases and makes money for the breeders.

Dar, you know that saying scientifically proven anything is known by very few, trust me,I know that and you know I know that based on my professional life activities.

Carolyn

[brownrexx]

Just because a plant is resistant to a disease does not mean that it is immune to it or that it can never be infected just that it is more resistant than plants that are easily infected.

Sorry to disagree but for myself, I do not see a difference between resistant or tolerant.

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by brownrexx

Just because a plant is resistant to a disease does not mean that it is immune to it or that it can never be infected just that it is more resistant than plants that are easily infected.

Sorry to disagree but for myself, I do not see a difference between resistant or tolerant.

And I disagree with your disagreement.

Those of us who are older, ahem, know that when hybrids were first sold,going back to the early 90's that resistance meant just that, 100% resistant,for whatever reasons and that was said with the descriptions in catalogs and online. Immune to me me is something very different, as in antibodies,etc,which plants don't have.

Carolyn

[OzoneNY]

Originally Posted by carolyn137

And I disagree with your disagreement.

Immune to me me is something very different, as in antibodies,etc,which plants don't have.

Carolyn

design flaw?

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by OzoneNY

design flaw?

You mean a design flaw in the evolution of the tomato which started in South America?

When I look around I see flaws in the evolution of mammals, reptiles,trees, and on and on that persists until now, which is why I intend to participate in the National Geographic Genome Project to see how much of me has been inherited from Neanderthals.

We all have such genes but I want to know how many/what proportion?

Carolyn

[FredB]

Originally Posted by carolyn137

You mean a design flaw in the evolution of the tomato which started in South America?

When I look around I see flaws in the evolution of mammals, reptiles,trees, and on and on that persists until now, which is why I intend to participate in the National Geographic Genome Project to see how much of me has been inherited from Neanderthals.

We all have such genes but I want to know how many/what proportion?

Carolyn

23andme says that 2.5% of me is Neanderthal. Whether it's the best 2.5% or the worst, I don't know.

On-topic: Plant breeders properly use the term "resistance" to refer to a single gene in the plant that specifically recognizes a single target (protein or whatever) in the pathogen. The plant usually responds by causing the tissue surrounding the infection to die, so the infection can't spread. Sort of like scorched-earth warfare. Resistance is often nearly 100% effective, until it becomes 0% effective when the pathogen finds the right mutation. The new race of pathogen then spreads like wildfire. There are lots of examples of this: potato late blight, wheat rust, a fungal disease that will eventually wipe out the Cavendish banana, etc. The only solution is to go back to the wild-type population and find a plant that is resistant to the new race of pathogen.

Tolerance is less effective, but it usually doesn't collapse suddenly like single-gene resistance.

I have a PhD in a totally different area of biology (neuroscience) but I like to read about this stuff.

Fred

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by FredB

23andme says that 2.5% of me is Neanderthal. Whether it's the best 2.5% or the worst, I don't know.

On-topic: Plant breeders properly use the term "resistance" to refer to a single gene in the plant that specifically recognizes a single target (protein or whatever) in the pathogen. The plant usually responds by causing the tissue surrounding the infection to die, so the infection can't spread. Sort of like scorched-earth warfare. Resistance is often nearly 100% effective, until it becomes 0% effective when the pathogen finds the right mutation. The new race of pathogen then spreads like wildfire. There are lots of examples of this: potato late blight, wheat rust, a fungal disease that will eventually wipe out the Cavendish banana, etc. The only solution is to go back to the wild-type population and find a plant that is resistant to the new race of pathogen.

Tolerance is less effective, but it usually doesn't collapse suddenly like single-gene resistance.

I have a PhD in a totally different area of biology (neuroscience) but I like to read about this stuff.

Fred

Yes, one gene,depending on what it's for, can HELP,prevent infection such as Early Blight, A. solani, Early Blight.The receptor is on the top of leaves and Daconil works well to help prevent disease by covering those receptor sites which doesn't allow for the fungal spores to attach.

Septoria Leaf Spot, the other common fungal foliage disease, has been an object of much study, yet no direct answers as to specific attachment sites.

Same for the two common bacterial pathogens of Bacterial Speck and Bacterial Spot.

Above I spoke of Early Blight which can appear early or late in the season and there are a few tolerant ones but as Dr.Randy Gardener has said,it just means a commercial farmer can spray every 7 to 8 days rather than every 4-5 days,which is a huge money savings.

Late Blight,P . infestans, is a totally different pathogen than EB. Being proactive with a good antifungal can help, and even if symptoms are seen early, remove affected foliage, but for many,from the time of 1st symptoms to plant death can occur in as soon as 5 days and what's left is a stinking pile of black foliage.

Well, I'm certainly not going to go thru the many other diseases.

Like you I have a Ph.D but in a totally different area. Mine is in infectious diseases and the immune response of humans and other mammals, now retired thank heavens since trying to teach med students,is,well,often a challenge, but am also interested in neuroscience as well, and that for several reasons.

One last comment. Diseases of humans,especially, is also based on the pathogens having to attach to specific receptor sites on different organs, depending on the specific pathogen. In that sense, the same as for many kinds of plants such as the ones you mentioned above of potato late blight, as well as tomatoes and more. Since most pathogens evolve and mutate faster than the plants do, and yes, some plants do mutate as well, it's an never ending problem IMO.

Carolyn

[OzoneNY]

Ok so... Celebrity then?

[Nan_PA_6b]

Ozone, I'll cast another vote for Big Beef as being tasty to many people and doesn't get wilt as easily as others. It's a very popular one that can be found in home improvement stores here.

I also personally had good experience with Matina: plants on two sides of it (touching it in places) succumbed to some type of wilt, and Matina never batted an eye. All three of us here found the taste to be good, and that one plant gave us 77 tomatoes, not even slowing down in the cold weather! The tomatoes are smaller than Big Beef though. And Matina doesn't make any claims to disease resistance/tolerance/whatever, but Big Beef does.

Tasti-Lee is supposed to have resistance to all three fusarium wilts, and people say it's tasty; I don't have firsthand experience with it.

Nan