North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Doreen Howard" <gardendiva@charter.net>]

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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