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Is It Blight?

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  • solanaceae
    replied
    Sorry to hear that Noosner.

    If the blight is as widespread as you are saying it is (entire leaf stems and leaves turned black/brown and a black/brown colour that covers most of the stem), then your tomatoes could be at risk/already infected, even if it doesn't look like the blight has spread to them yet.

    If it was me I would harvest all the tomatoes and let them ripen inside and then throw away the plant.

    On the other hand if you want to risk it and keep the plant going you should remove any infected leaf stems as soon as you spot them. As for any blight that shows up on the main stem you could try treating it with an organic fungicide found here Fresh Organic Gardening – Tomato Blight. (Though you might want to use potassium bicarbonate instead of sodium bicarbonate as the latter is thought to be slightly toxic to the plants/environment.) I've been using this fungicide all summer long and it's worked wonders for me. Mostly been using it for cucumbers/pumpkins to stop powdery mildew dead in its tracks. Recently blight has become a bit of an issue on the main stems of a couple of my tomato plants, so I sprayed the stems and went to check back later in the day to find it had stop sporulating and the patches had turned a light brown from a dark brown. The patches hadn't advanced any further days later either.

    If you have any outdoor toms that are ok at the moment, keep a close eye on them. At the start of the slightest infection of blight on the leaves, cut off the whole leaf stem to stop the spread to the rest of the plant and to other nearby plants from spores. In my experience, most tomato plants that I've heard/seen have got blight could have been kept going for a long while longer if only infected material was removed a lot earlier, (of course couldn't be helped in your case as you were away).
    Last edited by solanaceae; 28-08-2014, 01:39 PM.

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  • CurlyGreen
    replied
    Noosner, I think my greenhouse tomatoes got blight too, very late last year. I ate them and it was fine. But they didn't keep at all. So it was a waste of time bringing them all in and waiting for the green ones to ripen, they just went brown and had to be thrown away. So eat them all now!

    I also chopped off lots of leaves, whether affected or not. Might have helped though it seemed to carry on attacking the stems and fruit anyway.

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  • CurlyGreen
    replied
    Thanks Thelma and Solanceae. Sounds like there is hope The stems weren't too bad.

    Unfortunately I don't earth up so I'll have to hope my mulch is still deep. Half were in a new bed covered in manure, then double cardboard and then manky old hay and the other half just had manure and manky old hay which might not be much protection.

    I will wait a couple of weeks as you've suggested and keep my fingers crossed. And take extra care to separate out the damaged ones and shallow ones, interesting that the blight needs to get inside the potato to infect it.

    I haven't got anywhere out of the way to store the spuds, they'll be in my living space which makes it easy to check and notice any horrendous omg smells!

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  • Noosner
    replied
    All the tomato plants in my greenhouse (plastic) have got blight now - it seemed to happen very quickly over the weekend when I was away and couldn't open the door to air it. The tomatoes themselves seem okay, strangely, so I am picking and using them as normal. I'm assuming this is an okay thing to do? The blight is too widespread to really remove it.

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  • solanaceae
    replied
    If the blight has spread down the main stem into the ground then they could already be infected, but if it's just the odd patch on the stem like you said, then they are probably going to be ok.

    As for blight spores go, I agree with all what Thelma said. If your tubers have enough earth covering them, then they are probably going to be fine. The spores can't germinate on the skins of potatoes anyway, (as far as I'm aware). However they can germinate on the inside of the potato, where any skin has been lost due to things like erosion, slug damage, worm holes that kind of thing. (This sort of scenario is unlikely to happen though IMO).

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  • Thelma Sanders
    replied
    If you earthed them up, then they should be ok underground.

    You're supposed to leave them 2 weeks for the blight spores on the surface to die off, before you harvest them.

    They should still keep longer than the earlies and seconds, check the stored spuds every week or so - you'll soon know if the odd tuber is affected, cos they stink to high heaven OMG

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  • CurlyGreen
    replied
    On Tuesday eve (26th Aug) spotted that my potato foliage looks just like halfPlot's. And a few brown blotches on the stems. Looks like my first experience with blight on potatoes in 6 years. That probably makes me lucky. Also pleased Solanceae described as early stages of blight so maybe I have caught it in time to save my harvest.

    Have chopped the foliage back and will see how the potatoes look at the weekend. A bit worried as I read somewhere that the rain washes the blight spores down to the tubers and we had such a lot of rain here on Monday and Tuesday. Should I use my maincrops before my earlies and second earlies? They've all been harvested and stored away in dark boxes for later in the year and imagine they will store better than tubers that have been exposed to blight.

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  • Scarlet
    replied
    In my experience if I haven't used the toms as soon as I've seen the blight (green chutney!) they soon turn brown and taste pretty disgusting.

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  • teakdesk
    replied
    While I have had experiences in previous years that would echo Penellype's post I have had some success in rescuing (or at least using) fruit from blighted plants.

    In fact, I am hoping to do the same this year as three "spares" that were planted late on at the allotment have had evidence of blight on leaves (which were removed when seen) and the stem (can't remove!!!) for a week now.

    I have had a few ripe fruit off the plants but there were lots of green fruit about to ripen and lots of fruit still to swell to full size. I hoped that picking off the leaves daily would be enough for more fruit to be harvested.

    However, today I saw three fruit infected with blight and have now cleared the plants of fruit and put them to dry in a cool room. I'll be checking daily to see if any are going to succumb to blight and most will probably end up as chutney or green tomato cake next weekend.

    Fingers crossed!!!
    Last edited by teakdesk; 24-08-2014, 04:19 PM. Reason: grammar

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  • solanaceae
    replied
    Originally posted by Penellype View Post
    I think once the blight has got into the plant nothing will stop it. I once harvested about 200 green tomatoes with no signs of blight on the fruit, although the leaves and stems had it. I laid them out carefully on kitchen paper, not touching each other. By the next morning more than half had gone brown, and by the following day they were all useless.
    Not always true Penellype. Plants can recover, there is hope yet! Of course it all depends on how severely the plant has been affected.

    This year I've had plants with several fruit that have become blighted and the main stem of the plant with brown patches on it. Luckily the infection had stopped dead in its tracks thanks to the pleasant daytime weather we had, and I'd treated the plant or cut off any infected material and disposed of it. Since then some of those plants have continued to grow healthily(on the whole) with plenty of uninfected ripe fruit.

    On another note, had a look at the weather forecast (to be taken with a pinch of salt i know), but it doesn't look too good this week. Looks like it could be a washout for many areas with the threat lingering upto Friday.

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  • Penellype
    replied
    I think once the blight has got into the plant nothing will stop it. I once harvested about 200 green tomatoes with no signs of blight on the fruit, although the leaves and stems had it. I laid them out carefully on kitchen paper, not touching each other. By the next morning more than half had gone brown, and by the following day they were all useless.

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  • veggiechicken
    replied
    Originally posted by veggiechicken View Post
    I've stripped off all the green toms and soaked them in a Milton type sterilising solution - hope that will kill the blight spores. Made a pan of green tomato soup tonight, just in case !!
    Despite Miltoning the green toms - they are turning brown and blighty. Best I take them off my bedroom windowsill before it spreads to me

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  • Nicos
    replied
    If I recall correctly, it takes 2 weeks for the symptoms to show.

    Very sorry for you all, but don't be too peeved off, some of us with 12 blighted plants had to chuck away the lot before they had even set fruit!

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  • Jonnyt
    replied
    Blight needs warmth in the past few weeks it's not been as warm which may explain why warmer plants have caught it?


    Sent from my iPhone using Grow Your Own Forum

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  • Penellype
    replied
    Sorry to hear that VC and Martin. Its really odd that the blight should be showing now, when the nights are so chilly.

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