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nafex - Re: [NAFEX] Blight and Old Wives Tales

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  • From: "Doreen Howard" <gardendiva@charter.net>
  • To: "North American Fruit Explorers" <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Blight and Old Wives Tales
  • Date: Sun, 2 Oct 2005 13:23:10 -0500

Most blights are transferred by water from soil. Rainfall or water from the hose causes soil laden with blight spores to splash up on the lower leaves of a tomato plant transferring the spores to a friendly growing environment. That's why a thick blanket of mulch under tomatoes works well. Your volunteers may have natural immunity to certain blights. If they are offspring of a hybrid, they may be versions of an open-pollinated variety used to create the hybrid. Also, plants that naturalize in soil full of biological life have mycorrhizae colonized on their roots. Mycorrhizae produce target-specific pathogens that can kill hostile fungi, giving plants a natural immunity. The bottom line with tomatoes is to mulch thickly and build healthy soil full of soil microbes.
Doreen Howard

----- Original Message ----- From: "Jim Fruth" <jfruth@uslink.net>
To: <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Sunday, October 02, 2005 7:57 AM
Subject: [NAFEX] Blight and Old Wives Tales


No doubt we've all heard the old wive's tale about tomato plants
becoming blighted because their leaves touched the ground. Well, I've
staked my tomato plants every year and they were blighted every year. This
year something else happened. A number of volunteer tomato plants sprang up
where they were planted last year. I did nothing with them. I just let
them crawl across the ground and not one of them is blighted. These are
offspring of plants that were blighted last year and they are growing just
50' from this year's staked (and blighted) plants. So where does blight
come from?
--

Jim Fruth
Brambleberry Farm
Pequot Lakes, MN
www.bberryfarm.com



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