Disease Resistant(REALLY!) Semi-Det, Det. or Dwarf

[parah]

Here is a picture of Royal Hillbilly (the left container) and Amazon Chocolate (right container). They are about the same age, both grown in peat moss, same disease and bugs sprays, same fertilizer, Same amount of sun, they both get their flowers shaken with an electric toothbrush.

So far they are both wonderfully disease free! I am very happy with both plants, thick lush green foliage.

You can see that Amazon Chocolate on the right is quite a bit taller.
What you can't see is that Royal Hillbilly has 4 fruit... Amazon Chocolate has 28!
They have about the same number of flowers, but Amazon Chocolate sets more fruit.

Maybe Royal Hillbilly fruit is 7 times tastier.... or has a huge surge in production later in the season.... so far they are both disease resistant winners, but I like Amazon Chocolate a bit better.


big thanks to Raybo for the Container suggestions.

[bower]

Nice setup, Parah!

Our season is winding down here, with shorter days and temperatures starting to drop below optimal, so there's a lot of senescence in the old plants and major sanitation pruning every day or two as another stem goes down. I cleaned my cages with bleach yesterday to reduce the number of spores available too.

Most of the plants (excluding small fruited) have around half dozen fruit left or less, but counted 25 fruit this morning still coming on Zolotoe Serdtse, and half a dozen fruit around 7 oz have ripened from the plant this past week.

[parah]

Originally Posted by bower

Nice setup, Parah!

I cleaned my cages with bleach yesterday to reduce the number of spores available too.

25 fruit this morning still coming on Zolotoe Serdtse

Thanks Bower,
I want 25 fruit on Zolotoe Serdtse!!!

I like the reminder about bleach, I am embarrassed to say I spread Nematodes from container to container with the prongs on my hygrometer!
I just finished bleaching a double walled Raybo style container inside and out. Lots of work but it has to be done. I wondering if I should bleach the heavy string I use for Florida weave.

[bower]

Parah, This spring I took the assortment of ropes, ties, wire, foam rope etcetera used last year, weighed them down in a bucket and filled with hot water, a little dish soap and bleach to soak for a half hour to kill any spores or bacteria. No problem with disease carrying over this year, so I guess it worked. The only stuff that doesn't seem very re-usable was wire with a soft rubber coating - the coating got crumbly. Other rope and ties, good as new.

[tessa]

it probably sounds like i'm spruiking my own tomato...but perth pride outlasts all the other plants in my garden, often surviving 2 years.
granted...i don't have to deal with humidity, but i do deal with a lot of heat and mite infestation...and perth pride comes thru like a champion.

[bower]

Originally Posted by tessa

it probably sounds like i'm spruiking my own tomato...but perth pride outlasts all the other plants in my garden, often surviving 2 years.
granted...i don't have to deal with humidity, but i do deal with a lot of heat and mite infestation...and perth pride comes thru like a champion.

That is good to know, tessa!

I am such a newb, I've never grown a dwarf before this year, for some reason I thought the dwarf gene made the plants weaker and more susceptible, but that's obviously not the case. I grew Al Kuffa in my earliness trial this year, and discovered the enchantment of dwarves! Gorgeous plant, lovely growth habit, disease resistant foliage, and decent cold tolerance as well. I've been drooling over descriptions of dwarf's ever since..

[tessa]

bower...i think the opposite is true...
the dwarf genes make them STRONGER :-)

[bower]

Originally Posted by tessa

bower...i think the opposite is true...
the dwarf genes make them STRONGER :-)

That's what it looked like to me! The Al Kuffa were very sturdy seedlings with lovely thick stems, and besides resistance to disease and pest as seedlings and over all season, they were pretty cold tolerant as well. One of the signs of cold stress is purpling stems and undersides of leaves, which turned up on virtually all of my seedlings, but Al Kuffa showed less purpling, along with a couple of others. I also liked how it held its leaves, tucked down like a warm sweater..

[parah]

Originally Posted by tessa

it probably sounds like i'm spruiking my own tomato...but perth pride outlasts all the other plants in my garden, often surviving 2 years.
granted...i don't have to deal with humidity, but i do deal with a lot of heat and mite infestation...and perth pride comes thru like a champion.

Absolutely! Perth Pride is the most disease resistant of the 10 dwarfs I have tried so far. I have two of them growing right now.

You should be tooting your own horn. Perth Pride is a great success.

[tessa]

wow. thanks parah. nice to think of perth pride growing in thailand!!!

"And different disease pressures exist in different parts of the country so it's hard to compare SC with other areas unless you know and can share with us the specific diseases you refer to."

I believe Carolyn's statement is most accurate. I can't grow anything with rugose leaves (dwarfs) while they perform very well for folks in other parts of the country and other countries. Gray mold kills them every time I try. I've tried growing them in sterile pots with sterile soil some distance from other plants. They would typically be the only plants in my garden showing any sign of the disease. I'm thinking about trying them in my fall garden when my climate is considerably warmer and more dry than my cool, moist spring garden. I can almost predict when the disease will appear in the spring based on current weather conditions. None of the anti fungal remedies like Daconil or bleach makes any difference. It seems the best method I've found to prevent gray mold is avoid rugose leaf plants in my spring garden.

I intend growing Lime Green Salad in my next spring garden thinking it may also be a rugose leaf plant. I also plan on germinating it for my fall garden to see if it makes any difference. I also plan on giving the plant to some other growers who live in my general area to see how it performs in my area, but not in my garden.

Ted

[parah]

Originally Posted by tedln

I can't grow anything with rugose leaves (dwarfs) while they perform very well for folks in other parts of the country and other countries. Gray mold kills them every time I try. I've tried growing them in sterile pots with sterile soil some distance from other plants.

Ted

That is fascinating. I have the same problem with Gray Mold and black tomato plants. JD special c-tex, for example goes down in days, extreme measures including bleach only slightly delay the inevitable. So far Amazon Chocolate is the only black I have tried that can resist Gray Mold.

I wonder if there is a dwarf that can resist your virulent strain of gray mold.
Have you tried them all?

[bower]

Grey mold is the villain here as well, although it was less of a problem this year because it was drier and sunnier than usual. I have had the same problem with blacks, and Parah, it's really helpful to know which ones are most susceptible! I had JD's on my grow list for next year, but now I know it will not be a more resistant variety.... drat. If you have any more comments on the ones that did worst for you, I'd be interested. Also, have you grown Pink Berkeley Tie Dye, and if so, how did it fare?

This year I tried Black Russian, Black Early and Indian Stripe. Black Russian was very susceptible and went down early. Indian Stripe was the best, and Black Early leaves a bit more susceptible but not too bad. Both of them are still going in spite of the cold wet weather and short days, pruning cuts still looking clean.
By comparison, Kimberley is going down as of yesterday, with a moldy stem that quickly spread to the leaves. The dwarf Al Kuffa has been looking great, but this morning I see the mold has spread from Kim and infected two stems. Drat again. Time for cleanup.

Other blacks that have done poorly for me were Vorlon and Black Giant. Even the fruit were affected... yech.

My black varieties seem no more susceptible to gray mold than other varieties. JD's is a little more susceptible than most black's, but septoria is the villain which haunts my JD's, not gray mold. They still produce a good crop of really good tomatoes each year. Anything with rugose leaves however won't make it long enough to fully develop tomatoes. I've thought about trying the few dwarfs with regular leaves and see how they hold up, but I haven't done it yet.

I believe I have a short time frame each spring when the proper early morning temps and humidity converge for a couple of weeks encouraging the gray mold to form. The conditions don't last long, but long enough to destroy my rugose leaf plants and occasionally damage a few other susceptible plants.

Ted

[bower]

It's very interesting, Ted.

It only makes sense that Botrytis strains would be different in different climates and/or regions. Also makes sense that different varieties could respond differently, depending on soil conditions, nutrient status, other stresses on the plant etc. and how well adapted they are for those stresses/conditions.