Tomato blight.

[Martin G]

Having experienced this nasty disease cut a swathe through my crop and I've lost everything, conventional wisdom is to burn and get rid of every trace of the plants and any thing associated that had close contact.

Burning them is not a practical solution right now so much green (brown ! ) stuff without any other burnable material to start a good blaze. I've manged to bag up the majority of the stuff in a special bags for a collection service the local council has for green waste.

What of the gro bags that are left? They surely are going to be just as contaminated and the ground in the plot where the blight started? I just can't really believe the spore won't be there in the soil next year. Is there any treatment one can do to the soil that will eliminate it.

A supplementary question, to what degree are the 'resistant' varieties of tomato, resistant?

[Lesley Jay]

Martin I have always understood that blight spores need plant tissue to live on in the soil, such as potatoes that were missed when digging them up, leaves or bits of the plant. So as long as all plant remains have been removed any spores on the soil will not survive the winter. However, some people believe that the spores can live on the soil for up to two years. It's important not to grow your tomatoes in that spot for three years as the rain can splash the spores from the soil onto the lower leaves of the plant. If the lower leaves do get splashed with soil wipe them clean. I would dump the grow bags.

The year after we were hit with blight I grew tomatoes not that far away from where the blighted tomato plants had been and they were fine. I haven't read anything in the last few years saying that people growing the resistant varieties had still been struck with blight and last year was a bad one for blight.

[Martin G]

Thanks for that Lesley, I did pull up the roots of the ones in open soil and as far as I know there is nothing left, except in the gro bags.
If I do grow them again next year I can put them in a slightly different area. but we are talking only a few feet away. In any case unless I make the raised beds I plan I wont try to put anything direct into that same soil. That really would a waste of time !

[Lesley Jay]

Blight only affects potatoes and tomatoes so it will be quite safe to grow other vegetables in that spot. Aubergine and capsicum are also in the potato family but I haven't heard of blight affecting them. You could always grow the tomato plants in containers until your raised beds are made.

[Martin G]

I had some in gro bags a few yards away and they got blight, do you remember the picture I posted of them ? the Tumbling Toms, all gone now.
I do have four more plants in pots that are still OK so far Lesley just outside the back door, but I am suspicious of every brown leaf ! I have probably put them in too small a pot each as they are a little stunted but are producing so far, they taste alright but I'm surprised how unpleasantly thick skinned they are.