New fusarium wilt experiment

[b54red]

I have been battling fusarium for nearly forty years in my garden. I have tried nearly everything except soil sterilization to overcome it with very little luck. For the past few years I have just planted lots of extra seedlings and immediately replaced the fusarium blighted plants as often as necessary; but that has become more work than I am able to keep up with. This year I am going to plant grafted plants and see if this helps. I already have plants in the garden using the following varieties with known fusarium resistance for rootstock: Big Beef, Ball's Beefsteak, Floralina and Tasti-Lee. I am also experimenting with a fluke tomato as a rootstock on some of the plants to see if the resistance it has shown in the last two years is as good as it seems. I will also be using Amelia and Multifort for rootstock as soon as the new seedlings are large enough to graft.

I sure hope this gives me some better luck with my problem. I obviously have all three known races of fusarium and if there are any unknown ones I probably have them too. My garden is the perfect site for testing the grafted plants resistance levels and we have had another mild and wet winter assuring the fusarium problem will be especially bad this year.

So far none of the plants have shown any signs of fusarium or bacterial wilt; but the first plants were only set out on the 17th of March. Since I am trying multiple plantings with all of the rootstock I should be able to get a clue as to which ones work the best if they work at all. I will try to post the results and maybe it will help some others who have a similar problem.

Bill