Executive Summary:
Open-pollinated and Heirloom tomatoes often lack disease resistance due to the narrow genetic base of the tomatoes that were exported to the Old World and then the very intense selection (for large size) afterward.
For the sake of convenience, I use "open-pollinated" and "Heirloom" interchangeably in this post.
Another consideration is that the table I was extracting the data from listed 35 separate diseases (including sub-races). I chose to only consider Fusarium and Verticillium fungal wilts. Fungus has a very long half-life in garden soil and is aggressive at attacking the plant's roots. While virus might have higher fatality rates and more impact on yield, virus can be present and not "hit" the plant.
Another reason I focus on fungal diseases is that a specific fungus can survive on many different host species so crop-rotation is only partially effective. Even scrupulous sanitation measures leave tiny fragments of feeder roots in the soil. Once the spores are present in economically-impacting numbers, there are very few effective ways to deal with the problem.
Cultivar Resistances
Cherokee Purple |
4 |
2 |
|
Marglobe |
2 |
Mt. Gold |
2 |
Roma VF |
2 |
Rutgers 39 |
2 |
Rutgers Original |
2 |
Williamette |
2 |
Siletz |
2 |
Brandywise |
2 |
Medford |
2 |
Longkeeper |
2 |
Basket Vee |
2 |
Marmande |
2 |
Manitoba |
2 |
Sunray |
1 |
Glamour |
1 |
Marion |
1 |
Santiam |
1 |
Heinz 1370 |
1 |
Homestead |
1 |
New Yorker |
1 |
Oregon Spring |
1 |
I need something with rabbit resistance... maybe one of those new hybrids!
ReplyDeleteA well trained terrier. Rabbits and other rodents be gone.
DeleteThey will dig out the dens, so accept that as you fill them in.
Rat removal before poison was terriers.
Michael
We’ve grown Brandywine for years. As noted, disease resistance was … not good. But we still get enough tomatoes for our needs. The flavor is worth the effort. We’ve tried a couple of hybrids, but the flavor was not as good.
ReplyDeleteSouthern NH
Joe, first thanks for the chart, however I am unclear how to use your data in this chart.
ReplyDeleteDid a little researching on V wilt and F wilt (on phone hard to type).
V wilt seems to be cool soil temperature (55 degrees) and F wilt warmer soils (80 degrees).
Both spore up to survive 5-7 years in soils.
Very hard on nightshades, cabbages and squash. So crop rotation needs thought as not to restart the 5-7 years removal process.
Commercial greenhouses use steam to remove it. You and I can overheat the soil with plastic sheeting over 3 to 5 weeks.
Nasty wilt, Nasty.
Michael
Incomplete information, PROMPT removal of affected plants to INCLUDE all roots to be burned can keep wilt at acceptable levels. It's always there but healthy unstressed plants generally tolerate it.
DeleteDo NOT Compost contaminated plants as using that Compost is reseeding it unless a perfect HOT and turned steamed Composting occurs.
Tools used to remove contaminated plants need to be washed as not seed wilt into other plants.
Nasty wilt.
Michael
Yep, the only 'real' cure I know of is overheating the ground with some kind of sheeting in the hottest part of the summer.
ReplyDeleteI did a book review several years ago for a book entitled Landrace Gardening: Food Security through Biodiversity and Promiscuous Pollination by Joseph Lofthouse. The author's key concept is how to breed plants to increase genetic diversity for regional conditions and disease resistance. So far, I've only experimented with cucumbers and my results have been hopeful. Lofthouse's ideas might be worth exploring.
ReplyDelete