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Old July 20, 2016   #1
BlackBear
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Default Are Rugose and Potato more disease resistant to foliar disease ?

I think I saw somewhere that some believe that Rugose and potato leaf varieties are slightly more disease resistant to foliar disease than Regular leaf .....

does this notion really have data to back the claim up.?

Or is it just a "preference " to use rugose and or Potato leaf varieties ?

Anybody know about this ?
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Old July 21, 2016   #2
travis
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Rugose varieties ALL have been highly susceptible to fungal diseases for me ... always, and in every case. And I have grown a couple dozen dwarf varieties. This year alone, all 12 dwarf plants, in sterile potting mix, have expired from early blight, septoria leaf spot, and grey leaf mold ... leafless stems with a few green tomatoes covered with black lesions.


My experience with many potato leaf varieties, maybe 30 - 40 types, is that some are more tolerant of foliage disease than regular leaf types and others are not ... or vice versa

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Old July 22, 2016   #3
HudsonValley
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I haven't noticed that, but I will say that my rugose and potato leaved plants seem to have been preferred by, and suffered the worst damage from, aphids. (Of the 17 regular leaf varieties I'm growing, only Roma seems to have attracted aphids in quantities comparable to the rugose and PL plants.) All of the plants are still alive and producing, but the aphid-damaged leaves look like they've been partially torched.
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Old July 22, 2016   #4
kath
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This year is my first experience with any of the dwarf varieties. I'm growing 12 and must say that several of them are by far the earliest and worst hit with leaf diseases- Early Blight and Septoria, so far. Grey mold hasn't reared its ugly head much so far, as we've had a relatively dry season up until now. A couple of them are doing pretty well so far; however, I find their habit very difficult to deal with in terms of bagging, and keeping an eye on developing fruits, trim diseased leaves, find insects, etc.

As far as PL plants, in my conditions they always are more difficult to keep free of fungal leaf disease than RL plants. Unfortunately, most of my taste favorites have been PL varieties so I tend to keep growing them despite this shortcoming until I find enough RL varieties to love...or some of the more resistant PL varieties that Travis has found.
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Old July 22, 2016   #5
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Rugose are pretty gosh darnoodley sensitive.
Potato leaf, hard to say, the few I've grown have been a tad more sensitive.
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Old July 22, 2016   #6
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In my PNW climate PL get Gray Mold more than RL. I try not to grow PL varieties if possible. Have had no problem with rugose /dwarfs.

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Old July 22, 2016   #7
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I planted eight dwarfs from the project and they grew well and were just beautiful and then the disease monster came and took over when the tomatoes were about half developed. They are going to be gone soon. I may have to rethink some of my plans for next year.
VERY DISAPPOINTING.

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Old July 22, 2016   #8
Urbanheirlooms
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All of the potato leaf varieties that I grow are healthiest in my garden.
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Old July 22, 2016   #9
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Complicated questions deserve a complex answer.

Fungal diseases are mostly associated with humid conditions. Some areas of the country have very high average humidity and other factors that favor fungal spread. Tomato plants can have either open foliage or dense compact foliage. Good examples are Stupice which is a PL open foliage plant and Perth Pride dwarf which has dense compact foliage. Open foliage dries out easily after dew or rain which tends to make it less susceptible to fungal diseases. Dense foliage retains moisture which makes it more susceptible to fungal infections.

Then there are genetic factors that affect disease tolerance. Many on here will disagree with me, but the reality is that no commercial tomato available today has high levels of fungal or bacterial disease tolerance. There are specific genes that convey tolerance to some fungal diseases such as ph1, ph2, and ph3 which give late blight tolerance. The best foliage disease tolerance I've yet seen is from an S. Habrochaites line (LA2175) I got from TGRC, but keep in mind that this is only relevant to my local climate and may not hold true elsewhere.

There are varieties that are highly susceptible to foliage diseases way beyond any other variety around. Black Sea Man is one such and it is regular leaf. Cherokee Purple is the flip side with relatively good overall disease tolerance.

There is a very high environmental component to disease susceptibility. The pacific northwest and most of the northeast U.S. have a combination of temperature and humidity that really favors development of late blight and early blight, not necessarily at the same time, but usually where you find one, you find the other. So what are my local bugaboo diseases? Septoria and Gray Mold are the heaviest hitters here in northwest Alabama.

So are PL and Rugose plants inherently more disease tolerant? Nope, though some are more tolerant than others with open foliage being a huge positive.
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Old July 22, 2016   #10
KarenO
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I my previous zone 3 garden I found in general that dwarf plants, generally rugose were much more susceptible to disease which was not an issue with either RL or PL indeterminate plants. Agree with Darrel as above also.
My personal preference is PL plants as I like the way they look, the way the foliage shields the fruit from weather and to my taste, most of the best tasting for me tend to be PL. so far this early in my PNW garden I have no disease on my plants yet but it's early so will see.
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Old July 22, 2016   #11
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I can't really find a lot of instances where one is better or worse. I do know from years of growing both that Spudakee seems more productive and slightly less disease prone than its regular leaf version Cherokee Purple. Dester which is regular leaf is a disease magnet as are a few others. Virginia Sweet which is regular leaf seems to be one of the most foliage disease tolerant varieties I have grown but it still gets them just not as severely most of the time. I have found that tomatoes with very dark green foliage seem to have far less instances of TSWV while the paler varieties get it more often from my observation. I guess the thrips like the lighter color better because there aren't really any heirlooms that seem to be immune to this pest born deadly virus. Gray mold doesn't care whether the plant is regular leaf or potato leaf but it does like some of the black varieties and GWR varieties.

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Old July 22, 2016   #12
dustdevil
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Lots of rainy humid weather seems to generally spell disaster for ALL leaf types.
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Old July 22, 2016   #13
ABlindHog
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This is a topic I have been thinking about this year. For the last few years I have been trying a few of the new dwarf project tomatoes each season. (if you aren't doing this you should consider it) I have two growing seasons here each lasting just under 5 months. The Spring season ended about two weeks ago. The heat is just to much for the plants, especially the ones with disease processes weakening them. Unripe fruit on the plants I have not pulled no longer ripens, but cooks in the Texas sun. Since I started growing these new dwarf varieties it has been evident to me that they are still relatively disease free after 5 months in the garden. The last plants standing and producing for the last three seasons are all rugose and many are also potato leafed as well. It would be easy to draw the conclusion that leaf forms are making the difference but I have not found that to be true in the past. I believe that the difference between these plants and the dead ones is that they are only a few generations out from a process of hybridization, selection, and stabilization necessary to create them. Each step of the way the healthiest plants with the best fruit are used to move the process forward. We are getting them as soon as they appear to be stable, most are probably younger than F10. The process of stabilization is not complete at that point. Each generation will continue to have subtle variation for several generations to come. Many of the disease prone genetics have been selected out and the hybrid vigour is still not entirely gone. These are adolescents. An heirloom has had years to collect viruses and be weakened by small mutations and is much less vital overall and more susceptible to whatever comes along. Basing conclusions about the health of these plants on leaf form alone ignores the best part of the story.
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Old July 22, 2016   #14
carolyn137
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I hesitated answering,but decided to do so.

For many years I had my own tomato field where I grew several hundreds of plants and varieties and at the end of the season most had gone down with foliage diseases but the PL ones were still growing strong.

And I posted that observation at many places,many agreed with me,some didn't.

My theory is that the epidermis of PL foliage is thicker than RL leaves, and that's possibly the reason why since it might be harder for pathogens to initiate infection.

I can find no data to prove that, just my own observations.

I find rugose varieties to be very susceptible to foliage diseases when those diseases are known to be present in any given season and I think it's b/c of the pleated,convoluted surface of rugose leaves,which traps AM dews and rain,allowing for spores and bacteria to have an advantage in initiating infection.

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Old July 22, 2016   #15
Shrinkrap
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Thanks Carolyn! I was hoping you'd check in!

I am growing several dwarves in containers this year (mostly two/eartbox). Two are PL. I am noticing how dense and rugose the foliage is, but am not having extra trouble with disease,. I have sprayed with neem oil a few times this year, which I don't usually do, but in part, this is because I am inspired by how great these plants look!
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