Blight information and saving blighted tomatoes.

[Jayb]

I noticed some of my outdoor tomatoes are again showing blighted looking fruit, which got me thinking of potatoes for next year, pretty much a blight wipe out here this season.  I was having a mooch about and revisited the Sárvári Research Trust site, found good information http://www.sarvari-trust.org/late-blight.html

Also interesting stuff on their Sarpo news blog spot http://sarponews.blogspot.co.uk/search?updated-min=2012-01-01T00:00:00-08:00&updated-max=2013-01-01T00:00:00-08:00&max-results=9
First time I've come across information on how to save blighted tomatoes, I might dig out the incubator! http://sarponews.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/saving-blighted-tomatoes.html

[Jayb]

[galina]

That's interesting.   I have always found there is very little post harvest blight damage on fruit, if I pick really promptly, just as soon as there is any blight damage on stems - now I wonder whether part of this is because I 'cure' the tomatoes on trays in the conservatory and on sunny windowsills where they can get quite warm (although not perhaps quite as hot as 40C).

You are lucky if blight is really only starting now - here it was all over by late July with only a few outside ripened tomatoes.  These days I grow much more in the greenhouse than outdoors and only early varieties outdoors.  The 'Glacier' variety was the only one that had red fruit. 

Between Oregon State University, Tom Wagner and the Sarvari Institute we should be getting much more blight resistant varieties in the future, bred the traditional way.

[Jayb]

That's interesting I have always found there is very little post harvest blight damage on fruit, if I pick really promptly, just as soon as there is any blight damage on stems - now I wonder whether part of this is because I 'cure' the tomatoes on trays in the conservatory and on sunny windowsills where they can get quite warm (although not perhaps quite as hot as 40C)

Interesting, it certainly could be. I think picking very quickly is important too, horrible seeing all the fruits going brown. It's an interesting one, I'd be interested to read the article they mention.

You are lucky if blight is really only starting now - here it was all over by late July with only a few outside ripened tomatoes. 

No I lost my potatoes early on, first struck in mid June  :(  But much luckier with my tomatoes http://www.allotments4all.co.uk/smf/index.php/topic,72852.0.html The blight strains that have hit here the last few years start early and seem to strike potatoes first and very hard. With the tomatoes I stripped a lot of foliage and pulled the plants that were affected most, most survived. I've grown pretty much all my tomatoes under cover this year, I made two temporary hoop-houses which have worked well, one is about 4' high and has had a lot of toms that were in pots, it's also been very useful as a nursery site, next year I think it will house the determinates. The other was a stand up jobbie, I can just reach the top with my fingertip, so a useful height but the sides do move about in the wind, damaging anything growing too close.  I've had a bit of problem with water holding on the top in heavy rain and how much wind will it stand? Hopefully I'll be able to keep it up a bit longer, give some of the toms a chance to ripen. But it's been great and I'll definitely be putting it up again next year.