Blight

Ah me, this is all disturbing news and it explains a lot.

One thing that I can add:  I have two Mountain Magic tomatoes and they are indeed very disease resistant.  I do have some pretty bad fungus problems, but my Mountain Magics are still producing an abundance of fruit.  Every day I go out, there are several tomatoes that have ripened and are ready for harvest.

Mountain Magic seeds are expensive, but (for me) they are well worth the price.

Thank you camprn for that series of links.  I read all of them with great interest!

I've found blight on two of my plants. They have a lot of fruit that's not ripe, so I'm resisting pulling them out and pruning to remove infected stems. Tick, tick... 

A very informative FAQ about late blight.
http://www.longislandhort.cornell.edu/vegpath/lbfaq.pdf

camprn wrote:A very informative FAQ about late blight.
http://www.longislandhort.cornell.edu/vegpath/lbfaq.pdf

Very interesting.  I did not know that, with proper precautions, blight infected plants can be composted.  Also, I see that Mountain Magic tomatoes were referred to as very disease resistant.  I can attest to that based on my results with this season's crops.

Some early blight info.
http://www.extension.org/pages/29878/early-blight-management-for-organic-tomato-production#.VCWbBPldWSo


http://extension.umaine.edu/ipm/ipddl/publications/5087e/

http://buckshort.blogspot.com/2009/09/can-i-compost-those-diseased-tomato.html

Thanks for all those links camprn.  Okay, if I understand the above links, early blight is soil borne and can survive for a few years.  Therefore, rotate crops if you have the room.  One of the links said to disinfect/sterilize/whatever tomato cages etc.  Late blight is not soil borne and cannot survive if it does not have a living host.  Therefore I can see why you could compost the tomato debris.  One of the links said early blight debris could be composted, but with all the problems I have, there is no way I am going to take any risk infecting my compost.  If I could keep it a hot pile, I might consider it but probably not.

yolos wrote:Thanks for all those links camprn.  Okay, if I understand the above links, early blight is soil borne and can survive for a few years.  Therefore, rotate crops if you have the room.  One of the links said to disinfect/sterilize/whatever tomato cages etc.  Late blight is not soil borne and cannot survive if it does not have a living host.  Therefore I can see why you could compost the tomato debris.  One of the links said early blight debris could be composted, but with all the problems I have, there is no way I am going to take any risk infecting my compost.  If I could keep it a hot pile, I might consider it but probably not.

I just re-read some of the above links.  In my post above, I was partially incorrect.  Early blight can be wind borne but can also remain in the soil for a number of years. 

I finally cleaned out my early blight infested tomato box.  I did not compost the diseased tomatoes even though at least one of the above links said it could be done.  I raked up all the wheat mulch and put it in a large garden clean up bag.  I was going to throw the mulch in the trash because it may have early blight spores in the mulch.  But that is such a waste of a large amount of organic amendments.   

My question is, what would you do with the mulch other than compost it. 
1.  Throw it in the trash
2.  Put it in an area away from my vegetable garden.
3.  Dig it into the soil where the tomatoes grew.  If the spores do remain in the soil, then that soil is already contaminated and mixing the mulch back into the soil shouldn't infect it any more than it already is.  I am practicing rotation so I can wait a few years before I plant tomatoes back in that bed.

What would you do ????

***ALERT***
TAKE PREVENTIVE ACTION - LATE BLIGHT CONFIRMED IN VERMONT

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jul/9/first-case-of-garden-blight-identified-in-hinesbur/

Cross posted