Comments on: The tomato blight in my garden

By: شات سعودي

شات سعودي — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 20:25:28 +0000

thank you so much, realy i find this so helpful.
thank's again.

By: Russia

Russia — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 18:09:47 +0000

Hey very nice blog!! Man .. I will bookmark your blog and take the feeds also...

By: Paul

Paul — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 16:54:32 +0000

The question now is how do we avoid this happening in 2010?
While the snow is on the ground and this winter has been pretty cold I read that the blight can winter over in the North East. What preventative measures can we employee to stop or slow it down this summer?

By: garden tomato

garden tomato — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 09:25:25 +0000

I have searched many sites and not come across a site such as yours telling me all I need to know. I have added you to my bookmarks, can anyone else suggest other related topics that I can search for to find out more information

By: carin

carin — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 12:19:00 +0000

Unfortunately we also have severe late blight. We were devastated when we came home from the long holiday weekend to find all of our 60 tomato plants to be strickened with this blight. 75% of the tomatoes are infected. All of the plants itself are pretty much or soon to be dead. We still have green tomatoes that are not infected yet which leads to my question- Can the remaining tomatoes be picked to ripen then possible can? Hoping we can salvage some of our crop.

By: julia Mitchel

julia Mitchel — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 23:05:40 +0000

Blight also in central Kentucky, of five plants of different varieties I managed to get about six buckets full. The orange ones were the least affected, but the reds were devasted. The butterflys seemed to like the juice of the downed ones tho. Funny one of the plants was a volunteer from last year and had full tomatoes on it. We have had tons of rain so this did not help.

By: Kathy OMeal

Kathy OMeal — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 15:19:03 +0000

I live in upstate NY near Rochester. I save my own seeds and plant heirloom nonresistent only.
My Dad bought 2 beefsteak tomato plants from a nearby nursery. He planted in his raised bed, which is located a few feet away from my raised beds. His showed symptoms fairly early. All of his tomatos were destroyed.

I use a double hoop on my heirlooms. The inside layer is a no thrip/no see um mesh screen. The outside layer is a high quality plastic greenhouse sheeting purchased at Griffins in Auburn NY.

I dont ever take off my screening but do roll up or take off the plastic outer layer.

I believe the airbourne fungus is very small. However, we had quite a bit of wind blowing across and towards the heirloom beds from the infected hybrids. Yet, unbelievably, the heirlooms are producing super tomatoes and show no signs of blight. I did not use copper or baking soda as prevention. I watered them by drip, with the hosing placed on the ground, so as not to wet the leaves. I collect rainwater and completely irrigate from low gravity fed pressure, so this waters slowly adn I have to watch to make sure the plants get what they need. I made sure they had plenty of Ca2+ after flowering. I use SFG's Mel's mix recipe only, with home composted mixes. I do soil block initially and I do grow year round outdoors and indoors.

I really wonder why the heirlooms are not sick?
Yes, I use good infectious disease precautions. However, they are a few feet away from badly ill tomato plants.....

Maybe the sceening is slowing the fungus down...but surely cant be stopping it altogether.....????

The 4 different heirlooms are origianally from Heirloom Acres. THis is my 4th season collecting seeds from the originals.

Anyone have any ideas?

I am concerned about next season, even though complete rotation is possible. I have been to many farms in western NY and have seen almost complete devastation. I was frankly angry at Cornell's statement, that pokes at home growers....as if our crops are not necessary....some of us do depend on our tomato crops in this economically challenging time...

By: Bernadette Durham

Bernadette Durham — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 15:33:23 +0000

I had the same problem. I used an organic fungicide- Exel LG by Organic Labs - NOTE: it is not approved for California Organic Growers. It worked- I originally tried Ortho Ecosense first but did not help. The owner of Pound Ridge nurseries suggested i try the Exel product- and it salvaged most of my plants.
I also know you need to throw away all infected plants- do not compost. I also believe that you need to bake the soil they were grown in with black tarp over it to kill the fungus. I am looking into what exactly needs to be done with the soil. Any tips would be helpful!

By: marianne

marianne — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 21:20:43 +0000

To further add to my comment 08/16; the blight attacks were hit and miss no doubt, with our plants totally succumbed to it but our neighbors 100 yards away seem unscathed. Perhaps application of a fungicide may have helped unaffected plants, but we try to be as organic as can be and not keen on using chemicals on our vegetables.

By: Victoria Webb

Victoria Webb — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 02:59:07 +0000

I know a farmer not far from me who lost his whole tomato crop of 1200 plants this year. I planted from seed (Jung Seed and some older varieties still viable) and have still not lost any tomatoes at all to Late Blight. I do have a little wilt on some, but nothing like this devastating blight that's hit most of the east coast.

The cherry tomatoes from Jung, along with several heirloom varieties, have done quite well. I'm in southeastern PA and I guess either the wind patterns haven't blown the spores my way, or I got lucky with the varieties I planted.
We've had an extremely wet season and all my melons have rotted before ripening.