Friday, November 02, 2012

late blight resistant tomato seed

Does anyone have experience with late blight resistant tomatoes?

After all the problems we have had the past few years, we would like to provide our community gardeners with late blight resistant tomato seedlings next spring. I am looking into the best varieties.

I am thinking of trying these:
Defiant PhR (Johnny's Seed)
Mountain Magic (Johnny's Seed)
Plum Regal (Johnny's Seed)
Ferline (Thompson and Morgan)
Legend (Reimer Seeds)

6 comments:

Marian(LondonUK) said...

Hi Kathy, we did Ferline last year it was good! I am also looking into blight resistant potatoes, we had a problem with that this year. It moves in so quickly. According to a recent press article quoting the UK potato farmers, there problem with blight is the fault of allotment gardeners! Need to research that one.
Marian (LondonUK)


kathy said...

Do you really think that could be? I am worrying communiyt gardens that do not control late blight could become, or be viewed as an issue here too. We are working on setting our late blight policy for next year. Ive tired to find an expert to come talk with us, but no responses. Last year, so many gardeners didn't understand what we were asking them to do - bag and dispose of infected plants. Some comaplained and I said it is the official reccommendation. Most gardeners can't tell late blight from drought stress. And we had several other fungal like pathogens too. Some
gardeners pulled out their plants very early, before I saw any signs of late blight, others probably never even
got my notices and never pulled plants that were heavily infected.

We will be providing some resistant varieties, but are considering that that will be our only provision this year in fighting late blight. It will likely come early again next year and some gardeners know what it looks like, most don't.

pam_chesbay said...

I did a little research into late blight this year. There are 24 late-blight "clonal lines" in the US so your tomatoes need resistance to the late-blight clonal lines in your garden. It's possible to have more than one clonal line.;-(

In an interview (published by the SF Gate), Rob Johnston of Johnny's Selected Seeds said that the East Coast blight was US22.

Your list of LB resistant tomatoes looks pretty comprehensive. Here are three more varieties (I haven't tried any of these yet):

Fantasio
Golden Sweet
Old Brooks

There is a new national consortium of scientists studying late blight. The consortium has a website at USAblight.org/

At USAblight.org, you can see occurrence maps, report disease occurrences, view photos of late blight v. other tomato diseases (they may help you educate your CG folks), submit samples, and sign up for text disease alerts.

You can send samples and learn what clonal line(s) you have. If you plan to grow tomatoes and are at risk for late blight, register at USAblight.org to get your permit. When you first see late blight, you will have your emailed USDA permit that allows you to send samples across state lines to the lab where they will be identified.

I didn't realize that late blight is the same disease that caused the Irish potato famine. This article, "Late Blight: Playing Russian Roulette in your garden with potatoes," is downright scary:

http://www.longislandhort.cornell.edu/vegpath/articles/roulette.html

More late blight info and research initiatives:

http://www.longislandhort.cornell.edu/vegpath/photos/lateblight_tomato.htm

http://www.cals.ncsu.edu/agcomm/news-center/media-releases/taking-the-bite-out-of-late-blight/

Take care,
Pam


Anonymous said...

Defiant was fine, tomatoes were nothing special but no late blight vs the ones next to it that were hit. I got them from Johnnys.

kathy said...

Thanks Pam! Good info.

About Defiant, that's what I've heard about the quality of the tomatoes, nothing special. But I haven't such good heard reports on how resistant they are. Your experience sounds super. I bet, like Pam says it may depend on the strain of late blight you get.

pam_chesbay said...

Hi Kathy:

I think we need a person who has scientific training to sort through the research on late blight.

I'll bet some of it isn't worth the paper it's printed on, but there may be a few nuggets hidden away.

Just a thought ...