On 08/10/2014 08:23, Bob Hobden wrote:
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. :-)


In a dahlia forum I belong to there has been a discussion about when to
harvest dahlia seed heads some harvest when they have reached full size
but are still green.
This got me thinking (Yes I do at times0.
Would tomato seed be viable if harvested from full size but green tomatoes?
Then you wouldn't have to hope that your late fruit would ripen.
David @ a damp and windy side of Swansea bay.