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Old 08-10-2014, 08:23 AM posted to uk.rec.gardening
Bob Hobden Bob Hobden is offline
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First recorded activity by GardenBanter: Aug 2006
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Default Blight resistant Tomatoes.

Tom Crane wrote

Bob Hobden wrote:
: Does anyone else grow these outside? As usual we planted Ferline, Legend
and
: Lesotto (could not get any Fantasio). Unusually all have died of blight
this
: year and the only tomatoes left growing are the self sown ones out on the
: plot which so far are not showing any signs of blight and are covered in
: fruit. They are obviously from last years Lesotto (which is F1) but they
do
: seem to be more resistant than the original, perhaps they crossed with
one
: of the others. I will be saving seed!
: Is Blight becoming more infective or are there more strains about?

Lesotto -- did you mean Losetto? I have grown these in containers
in S.E. Essex this year where there have been numerous warnings of a
Full Smith Period on http://www.bligh****ch.co.uk in recent weeks.
Some of the unripe tomatoes have had the characteristic brown-green
mottling but the stems have had none of usual the brown marks/legions
I've seen with blight on other varieties in the past. None of our G/H
plants which are all other varieties have been affected. I'm not sure
whether we've had blight or not!


Yes I did mean Losetto. Our plot is in Thorpe, just down the road from
Holloway, so you must have had blight by now, everyone else has around here.
Even the Losetto in our hanging baskets at home did but not before they had
finished fruiting.
We find the blight resistant tomatoes do eventually get blight but it does
not affect them the same as "normal" tomatoes, they tend to still crop for
some while after getting the dark blotches on the leaves. Indeed IME if you
take off those infected leaves as soon as seen then the plant survives
longer. Losetto seems to be the best at resisting blight at the moment, our
Ferline and Legend went quite quickly this year yet the Losetto lasted weeks
more.
If you also use Bordeaux Mixture then they all survive well, I didn't this
year.
Last years Losetto seeded around our plot because we could not get to all
the fruit under the plants and this year we had them coming up like weeds,
still germinating now, got a good crop off the ones I left to grow.
Interestingly right now we have one tomato that has grown beside one of our
compost bins, between it and our rabbit fence, that plant is now 5ft tall
and covered in green fruit. Looks to be a cross between Losetto (fruit size)
and Ferline (plant size). I'm keeping an eye on it to see how long it lasts
and if I can get seed, from comments I've heard I'm not the only allotment
holder watching it. :-)
--
Regards. Bob Hobden.
Posted to this Newsgroup from the W of London, UK