tomato blight--question about starting from seed

14 years ago

I got tomato starts this year and have blight on a couple of them. I'll be tossing those out (now that I know what's going on) but my question is this: Next year, if I plant only tomatoes that I start from seed myself, would blight be as big a threat? From what I've read, this year's blight problem came from big-box stores where they were infected. I bought mine from a smaller distributor, but they must have gotten it from someone big.

Or, now that I've had blight, will all future tomatoes, regardless of their origin, be at risk?

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Comments (7)

anney
14 years ago
champagne

The Late Blight that's caused the widespread problem with an early appearance is in the Northeast, not in the South. Before concluding your plants had Late Blight, make sure that's what it was. Early blight is a very common tomato plant disease and may be confused with Late Blight. Early Blight is not as rapidly lethal, and the symptoms are not the same. It can also be controlled with fungicides. If your plants had Late Blight they'd be dead in a week. Late blight lives in organic plant tissue and debris remaining on the soil but freezing kills it.

Early blight is not killed by freezing.

All that said, starting plants from seeds yourself is certainly a good idea, but Late Blight is wind- and rain-borne, so if you have healthy plants to begin with, that's no guarantee that Late Blight won't infect them if it's in your area. Fungicides may or may not be a control.

The Tomato forum has excellent discussions about the differences in the two blights, where they're a problem, their identification and control. Go to that forum and search within that forum for "blight" to find the discussions.
denno
14 years ago
I started all my tomatoes from seeds this season, and the 'blight' spread through them very quickly. From my understanding, the disease is spread by wind blown spores, and I still wonder if it will be an issue next season. I even let some plants that grew wild from last years plantings, continue to grow and see what happens. Sure enough, they have the bacterial blight showing up on their leaves also. And they were about 50 feet from this seasons plants!
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Dan _Staley (5b Sunset 2B AHS 7)
14 years ago
Blight spores can overwinter.

Dan
anney
14 years ago
Dan

Early blight spores overwinter in warm or freezing winters. Late blight spores, the one that's been identified in the Northeast, are killed by winter freezing. If it's too warm for freezes, they survive.
Dan _Staley (5b Sunset 2B AHS 7)
14 years ago
Sorry - too much shorthand, and the 'can' was supposed to suffice. Apologies for the confusion.

Dan
anney
14 years ago
denno

It's bacterial spot or speck. They're treated differently from Early or Late Blight since the first is caused by the bacterium, Xanthomonas campestris pv. vesicatoria, and the blights are fungal infections.
pnbrown
14 years ago
I started from seed and am still blight-free, thank goodness. This fact may be as much due to an unusual isolation as from the seed-start, probably both helped.

Anyway, I grew in cages this year for the first time - rather than trellis-and-prune, and it's been by far the best harvest ever. I'm beginning to tire of huge ripe cherokee purples as by chance (and poor organization) I have more of those plants.