Chicken bald back

[Valkyrie]

This is his advice in an email yesterday - I have blight on some toms so I have been picking them off although the leaves seem fine! Thought it worth passing on!

 

"Blight on tomatoes, potatoes?

• Blight arrives quickly, turns leaves brown (not yellow) and translucent, then shows as brown patches on stems and makes fruits/tubers go brown and rotten after a few days. In warm weather this happens rapidly but cool nights and dry air slows it down.

• If just a few tomato leaves are infected and the weather is improving, try cutting them off and stay vigilant, but if the weather is damp and warm, your plants may not recover. Cut potato stems tom compost and harvest tubers as soon as convenient.

• Blighted foliage and fruits/tubers can be composted, because the disease spores survive only on living tissue, not in soil or compost."

[sjp]

This is his advice in an email yesterday - I have blight on some toms so I have been picking them off although the leaves seem fine! Thought it worth passing on!

 

"Blight on tomatoes, potatoes?

• Blight arrives quickly, turns leaves brown (not yellow) and translucent, then shows as brown patches on stems and makes fruits/tubers go brown and rotten after a few days. In warm weather this happens rapidly but cool nights and dry air slows it down.

• If just a few tomato leaves are infected and the weather is improving, try cutting them off and stay vigilant, but if the weather is damp and warm, your plants may not recover. Cut potato stems tom compost and harvest tubers as soon as convenient.

• Blighted foliage and fruits/tubers can be composted, because the disease spores survive only on living tissue, not in soil or compost."

last bit is wrong blight 'seeds' can survive for years in the soil (some say up to 20 years)advice has always been not to compost infected material blight spores are then triggered by warm damp humid weather about 21degrees and around 80% humidity at the moment you can't prevent blight chemically as nothing works on the shell of the 'seeds' and I'm not sure if there's anything on the market that can control blight as I think the last chemical was removed a year or two back that was Diathane 945 I think the other mix was Bordeaux mix but officially domestic gardeners can't buy the 2 main ingredients cooper sulfate and sulfur personally I just take my chance with blight and as soon as I see the black thumb print on the leaves I cut the spud plants down to 6" above the ground the bin them blight takes about 3 days to take out a plant from the thumb print to the black/brown mush but a quick change in the weather to hot dry windy will stop blight, if leaves are brown in the center with a yellow edge that isn't blight and if the plants don't die in 3 or 4 days that isn't blight and if your on an allotment site it will affect most to all of the site not just one plot, the spores are wind blown

out door tom plants get pulled up and binned indoor ones I've only ever lost once and that was my own fault as I left the greenhouse door closed on a wet morning about 20 years ago ever since the doors stay open from the end of May till winter and from about now I start to remove the lower leaves to allow plenty of airflow around the plants

[Valkyrie]

I've put Bordeaux on mine - prevention is the thing! And I've been trimming the lower leaves. Not had a good tom session this year anyway - not many set. Although the peppers are going crazy!!!