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bower · January 31, 2013

I'm glad to see you have included LA2951, the one that was reported strongly resistant to botrytis in the paper you linked in 'Winter Reading' thread.

Growing in a cold, wet, low light climate here, it's botrytis that kills the plants under those conditions, before the temperature is low enough to damage the plant by freezing.

There's a substance in tomato blossoms that stimulates the growth of botrytis. I had a disaster in 2011 (coldest wettest spring and summer ever) when a plant that set a lot of blossoms also dropped them in the cold (Peacevine cherry) and the mouldy blossom drops infected foliage and stems wherever they fell. Some other cultivars did not drop their petals cleanly after setting fruit, which resulted in botrytis on the fruit blossom end. So the blossom characteristics are something I watch closely when trying new varieties that have to tolerate this climate. Besides not dropping the whole flower in the cold, petals that drop clean when fruit has set is a helpful trait (Stupice and Moravsky Div are a good example). Botrytis resistance has never been documented in tomatoes, afaik, although Black Cherry blossoms seemed to have much lower susceptibility to the mould cw others, the plant itself was just as susceptible via pruning cuts etc. The LA2951 traits would certainly be a boon for your cold weather tomato.

January 31, 2013	#92
bower Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Feb 2012 Location: Newfoundland, Canada Posts: 6,793	I'm glad to see you have included LA2951, the one that was reported strongly resistant to botrytis in the paper you linked in 'Winter Reading' thread. Growing in a cold, wet, low light climate here, it's botrytis that kills the plants under those conditions, before the temperature is low enough to damage the plant by freezing. There's a substance in tomato blossoms that stimulates the growth of botrytis. I had a disaster in 2011 (coldest wettest spring and summer ever) when a plant that set a lot of blossoms also dropped them in the cold (Peacevine cherry) and the mouldy blossom drops infected foliage and stems wherever they fell. Some other cultivars did not drop their petals cleanly after setting fruit, which resulted in botrytis on the fruit blossom end. So the blossom characteristics are something I watch closely when trying new varieties that have to tolerate this climate. Besides not dropping the whole flower in the cold, petals that drop clean when fruit has set is a helpful trait (Stupice and Moravsky Div are a good example). Botrytis resistance has never been documented in tomatoes, afaik, although Black Cherry blossoms seemed to have much lower susceptibility to the mould cw others, the plant itself was just as susceptible via pruning cuts etc. The LA2951 traits would certainly be a boon for your cold weather tomato.