Any advice for next years toms minus blight

[drudge]

Hello, this years and last years toms were destroyed by blight.
Inside our greenhouse the base is soil.

Last years toms were grown in the soil, they got blight.
This years were in pots on the soil, they got blight.

Going to clean the greenhouse with Jeyes.

I would prefer to grow plants in the soil (organic if possible)

Q1 Is the blight in the soil? If so what preperation should I do?

Q2 If I use the soil again, what nutrient prep should I do?

I've got a compost bin (and husband for digging), so were planning on
compost and added dried chicken pellets, is that OK?

Thanks Jude

[DavidT]

Good evening Jude, and welcome to the site. If you grow Toms in the soil in the greenhouse, this soil should be changed every year. Blight has become very prevalent in recent years, to try and prevent it affecting your plants, you could try treating them with a copper fungicide or Bourdeax mixture, Start treatment early on.

[drudge]

Many thanks David, this raises a few more questions.

Q1 To what sort of depth should I (my hubby) have to remove.

Q2 Can the soil be used elsewhere in the garden / will winter frost kill the blight in the soil.

Thanks again Jude.

[DavidT]

The soil just be removed at least a spit deep, that is the depth of a spade blade. You can use the soil elsewhere, but not in an area were potoatoes are going to be grown. I would be inclined to treat the soil with a fungicide to be on the safe side. Of course, the easiest option would be to grow the toms in growbags.

[drudge]

Thanks David, you've given me plenty to think about,
and lots for hubby to do.

Jude

[woodchipper]

Hi everyone
Great topic and advice. Will treating the soil with a fungicide wipe out botrytis as well as other blights? We use new soil each time we change plants. Also a tip for whitefly is that we found that introducing common outdoor ants into the hothouse eliminated whitefly whether the ants eat the eggs of whitefly or do something else, I don't know, but the ants go up the tomato plants that the whitefly are on. We haven't had whitefly now for 3 years. The floor of our hothouse is sand/sawdust mix which the ants love.
Cheers
woodchipper

[Lesley Jay]

Hi Woodchipper, unless your tomato plants where struck down with blight last season there is no need for you to worry about blight spores in the hothouse.

Blight spores from infected plants need plant tissue to live on in the soil, so if your plants do get struck with blight as long as you remove any plant remains such as leaves or bits of the plant from the soil then the blight spores will not survive the winter. However, some people believe that the spores can live on the soil for up to two years. But you remove the soil each year!

[jackb]

You could solve your blight problems permanently and grow hydroponically.

[Lesley Jay]

Originally Posted by jackb

You could solve your blight problems permanently and grow hydroponically.

Hi Jack, although growing tomato plants hydroponically means that the leaves don't get wet when watering, tomato blight spores are airbourne and can find their way into a greenhouse where humid conditions can cause the disease to spread quickly. Unfortunately tomato blight is a problem for hydroponic growers.

[jackb]

I must be living right as I have been growing tomatoes in the greenhouse for years and have never had to deal with blight.

[DavidT]

Jack, it`s only become really prevalent over here in the past 5 years or so. Toms and potatoes have been devasted for the amateur gardener.

[airconednightmare]

jackb, do you actively control the humidity in your greenhouse/growroom?

keeping it below 50% rh will stop any fungus growing

[Lesley Jay]

Originally Posted by DavidT

Jack, it`s only become really prevalent over here in the past 5 years or so. Toms and potatoes have been devasted for the amateur gardener.

Unfortunately last year was a really bad one for the U.S. with tomato blight spreading on a wide scale to nearly every state in the Northeast, including New York and also mid-Atlantic states causing some panic with young tomato plants removed from sale at stores (garden centres). It's an absolutely dreadful disease.

[jackb]

Originally Posted by airconednightmare

jackb, do you actively control the humidity in your greenhouse/growroom?

keeping it below 50% rh will stop any fungus growing

I absolutely do, as much as possible. Being retired I am able to monitor the conditions and add or remove shading, open vents, ventilate, moisten the floors and pea gravel to adjust heat and humidity. Last year was a disaster for blight in upstate New York. My neighbors were destroying their plants in early July. My soil garden tomatoes were not worth the effort, however, I have been fortunate to never have had blight in the greenhouse. With all the cold, dreary weather we had last year, my greenhouse tomatoes were much smaller than normal, and I got a lot fewer tomatoes, but not a sign of blight. The autopots control moisture to the medium using a float valve, and not a drop of liquid is splashed anywhere near the plants or medium, which I think may contribute to controlling blight in my greenhouse.

Then again, perhaps it is just pure dumb luck.

[airconednightmare]

cold and wet = bad

worm and dry = good

so long as we are talking about air

[jackb]

The local paper had an article on blight today, and here is a quote:

BALLSTON — A tomato blight problem that decimated Northeast crops last year should be a thing of the past, local gardening experts say.

However, commercial grower Ken Clark — who lost more than 500 plants — is definitely concerned.

It’s believed the airborne disease, made worse by last summer’s rainy weather, was introduced to the region by plants raised in Florida, brought north and distributed by local “big box” retailers.

[airconednightmare]

no explanation of why exactly they expect it to be a thing of the past?

the spores are there now, regardless of where they came from


it's a bit like some bloke in london in 1665 saying, 'well we think plague came from continental europe last year so we should be fine next year'

[jackb]

Originally Posted by airconednightmare

no explanation of why exactly they expect it to be a thing of the past?

the spores are there now, regardless of where they came from


it's a bit like some bloke in london in 1665 saying, 'well we think plague came from continental europe last year so we should be fine next year'

Exactly! The article goes on to state:

“I don’t care where you are,” said Clark, of Clark Greenhouse on Hop City Road. “If it’s in the air you’re going to get it. It’ll travel for miles as the wind blows.”

Last fall, gardeners were encouraged to dispose of bad plants. Those who did shouldn’t have to worry this year, said Sue Beebe, of Saratoga County Cornell Cooperative Extension.

“The big key is to make sure that people have cleaned up their gardens of old debris,” she said. “If you cleaned up and got rid of everything, you’re not going to see the same kind of effects.”

To minimize the threat, people should rotate their crops and put new tomato plants in a different section of their garden this spring, she said. People should put other crops such as corn, radishes or lettuce where tomatoes were before.

“It shouldn’t be nearly as much of a problem this year,” said Dorothy Eggleston, of Binley’s Florist in Queensbury. “There’s a lot of attention being paid to it.”

[airconednightmare]

i still reckon there is some amazingly simple answer mankind has yet to stumble on.

i mean does nothing eat the spores - like ladybirds kill spider mites

or a plant we could put next to the toms which would produce something the blight didn't like.