Is It Blight?

[solanaceae]

Yes, same here. It's just the plants in the south facing, sunny area of the garden that are having the blight troubles. Every other area is just fine.

Perhaps the higher amount of sunshine in that area of the garden during the day means more heat is radiating away from the ground at night, leading to higher rates of humidity/condensation under the leaves/stems = ideal for blight.

If that's the case then I suppose the plants in the non-blighted areas of the garden should be fine for a good while yet, so long as there are no Smith Periods.

[Martin H]

There were a few patches of blight on my outdoor toms today:



I'll be clearing the lot pronto and relying on the greenhouse ones which are okay so far.

I'm in the process of cutting off all the potato foliage as well. Luckily it's late enough in the season that I've got a decent crop waiting to be dug up.

[veggiechicken]

Some of my tomatoes went down with blight today - they looked so healthy when I took this photo a couple of days ago. They're in with the squash alongside the GH - south facing border, one of the sunnier spots in the garden.



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 !!
Hope it doesn't spread into the GH or to the other toms and potatoes at the other end of the garden.

[Penellype]

The layout of the garden at my friend's is interesting. The house is one of a small number of dwellings down a single track country road. The garden borders a field (containing horses), and I am not aware of any potatoes growing nearby although the land is generally arable. On the south side of the garden is the vegetable patch - there are 4 Bajaja tomato plants (bush variety) in there. They are showing no signs of blight. To the north of the vegetable patch is the hotbed in which the blighted tomatoes are growing, and to the west of this is a garage. Along the garage wall, about 3 feet from the hotbed, are pots of Moneymaker tomatoes, which have not got blight. It is literally only the 3 plants in the hotbed that had the blight, and they had it really badly. If the problem was damp shade I would have expected the shadier garage wall to have encouraged the blight, and the Moneymaker tomatoes there to have got it too.

I really have no idea how it got there - we have not had a Smith period here for about a month, and the hotbed was constructed from new gravel boards and filled with fresh horse manure (straight out of the stable) topped with bought compost. In contrast, the Bajaja plants were planted in an area of soil which had last year's old potato crop in it until March, when I took over the veg patch. If anything was going to get blight I would have put my money on the Bajaja!

Confused

[solanaceae]

Interesting.

In my case I've found the tomato plant type has no significance in determining how likely it gets blight. The crucial factor seems to be where in the garden the plant is situated at.

[Penellype]

The ones that got blight for me were Chocolate Cherry (very bad), Belle (very bad) and Sungold (not very bad but clearly affected). The ones nearby that haven't got it are Moneymaker.

[ButternutSquash]

It is very strange. The tomatoes that I planted in the hotbed at my friend's house have got it. The ones she planted in pots about 3 feet away have not (yet).

Last year I had Sungold outdoors, and Maskotka outdoors. One of the latter was next to the Sungold. The Sungold were destroyed by blight, in mid september, the Maskotka had a few iffy leaves, but appeared to shrug it off. Maskotka is quite early, and hardy too.

This year my Sungold have some leaves that are a bit silvery underneath, and curling, I'm hoping it is just a reaction to cold nights. If it is blight, I will lose almost all the harvest this year.

[solanaceae]

Hi everyone

Something appeared on my potatoes about 4 days ago after the period of heavy rain.

Here is a pick from 4 days ago

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And here is how it looks today

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I also dug up one plant up and took a pic of the underside of it

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And the spuds underneath look not to bad just not very many of them and some wireworm damage by the looks of it.

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The variety is Maris Piper and they have only been growing about 3 months. Do you think its blight or something else?

Thanks

Definately the early stages of blight I'm afraid.

[Penellype]

It is very strange. The tomatoes that I planted in the hotbed at my friend's house have got it. The ones she planted in pots about 3 feet away have not (yet).

[solanaceae]

Funny old blight eh.

Last year we had a double smith period 3rd week of August, yet most of my plants were unaffected.

This year we haven't had any smith periods all season long, except a 'near' period in early July, which makes the blight my tomatoes have been under attack from, since the start of August, all the more bewildering.

The past week the blight has been spreading gradually through 2 of my potato beds. Was hoping the unaffected plants would be contained with Bordeaux mixture, but no such luck. In the past day it really has started spreading even more quickly that I've had no choice but to cut off all the foliage in order to stop the spread to other plants in the garden.

The other 2 potato beds are in a more shaded and crowded area of the garden, so it only makes sense to think they would get blight first... but there's not a single blotch/patch of it.

[Green Gerkin]

Thanks for the planting to harvest days Nicos - very useful, I have made a note of them.


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[Penellype]

It is early for blight but it has been warm and humid, ideal conditions for it to spread. The tomatoes that I am growing at my friend's house (next to open fields) definitely have it today although they looked ok yesterday. The signs are blotches on the leaves (very similar to the photo of the potatoes in halfplot's pictures), but more tellingly, black splodges on the stems and some of the fruit starting to go brown. I've seen enough blight to know that this is definitely it. This is disappointing as there have not been many reports of blight in this area, and we haven't had a full Smith period in the last month or so, although we have had 3 days when the criteria were met or nearly met in the last fortnight.

My home tomatoes have black spots on the leaves, but these are completely different, smaller and not fuzzy around the edges. The stems are fine (so far) and the plants just look healthier.

[Nicos]

Maris Piper are early maincrop ....

Very early earlies - 75 days (harvest around June)
Earlies (or 1st earlies) - 90 days (harvest around July)
Second Earlies - 110 days (harvest around August)
Early Maincrop - 135 days (harvest around September)

Late Maincrop – 160 days (harvest around October)

ie 135 days from planting to harvesting....so , from what you say at 3 months, they should have another month to be ready.

That is the theory at least!

Have a furtle under the soil and see how big they are....

[Nicos]

Blight takes 2 weeks to show.

Where are you located halfPlot???...can you please put your rough location into your profile so we can better advise/help you???

If it is blight, it's very early...if you cut into the spuds, do they look bruised? ( any chance of a piccie??)

If your spuds are nearly ready I'd be tempted to chop down all the top growth for now and burn it...it reaches the spuds down the stems.....were the stems of those spuds covered in brown patches??..if so,I think it's blight .

Personally , I have found that once he stems are affected you need to act swiftly with chopping down blight.

Do be aware there are other fungus problems which can affect potatoes which won't affect the spuds in the same way.

[halfPlot]

Something on my potatoes

Hi everyone

Something appeared on my potatoes about 4 days ago after the period of heavy rain.

Here is a pick from 4 days ago



And here is how it looks today



I also dug up one plant up and took a pic of the underside of it



And the spuds underneath look not to bad just not very many of them and some wireworm damage by the looks of it.



The variety is Maris Piper and they have only been growing about 3 months. Do you think its blight or something else?

Thanks