North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Thomas Olenio" <tolenio@sentex.net>]

Hello,

In regards to tomato blight...

This year I tried something new (old).  I had always suffered from tomato  
blight from soil splashed on leaves.  This year I put down a mat of wet  
leaves under the plants when they were young.  The garden walkways I just  
laid down plastic sheeting runners, the edges of the runners covered with  
the mat of leaves.

Had zero blight this season, and NO weeding.

I just collected bagged leaves in the autumn from the curbside, stuck my  
garden hose into the bag and filled them with water, making the leaves  
wet.  Then I let the wet leaves rot in the bags all winter.

When I put in my tomato plants, the wet leaves spread underneath (3"  
thick) was a perfect mat.  Held in heat, kept down weeds, and prevented  
blight.

Later,
Tom

On Sun, 2 Oct 2005 13:23:10 -0500, Doreen Howard <gardendiva@charter.net>  
wrote:

> 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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