In the 'old days', many of the tomato plants have a lot more natural protection againt any blights. Today, with all the hundreds or varieties, its very hard to know which will grow well in a specific area. I recall growing stuffing tomatoes one year. Kind of like a cross between a big bell pepper with an empty cavity inside except for the seed cluster. The stuffing tomatoes looked good at first, but once the started to ripen to red, they got small spots on the skins that destroyed them very fast. If they were picked before the spots appeared and brought indoors, washed and allowed to sit on a counter overnight, the next day they would have many bad spots that quickly consumed them. Never again will I plant a stuffing tomato. My two favorite choices for tomato seeds is Totally Tomatoes and Tomato Growers. Both offer many kinds, and some are highly resistant to blights. Of course the store boughts are like baseballs and can take a lot of banging around, but thats fine if they are intended to be handled a lot and shipped a long distance away.

Jay, Our weather has been all over the place the last 6 weeks with very little consistency. Some nights it has dropped into the 60s and many nights it has dropped into the lower 70s. Walking out the door before sunrise to an air temperature of 84 was just pathetic. We usually have that kind of heat here at night in early August, not early July. I cancelled my plan to dehydrate the tomatoes today when the heat index hit 105 and the power went out. The power was only out a couple of minutes, but it caught my attention and made me decide to wait until tomorrow. I don't want to have an oven full of baking sheets with little dehydrating tomatoes on them and then have the power go out. It currently is 98 here with a heat index of 105, and we're in the "cooler" Red River Valley. Up in Ardmore and Madill, one of which is one county north and the other is one county northeast of us, they have hit 100 degrees and Ardmore's heat index is 106 and Madill's is 107. We're supposed to hit 103 here today but I keep hoping the cold front will send T-storms out ahead of it that will cool us down. I hope my mentioning the ripe tomatoes didn't hurt you too much! I am sure you'll have ripe ones before you know it. My harvest is peaking a month late--it usually starts in earnest the first week in June and this year it really started around July 1st. I think the harvest will be just as large as past years, assuming some disease does not suddenly strike, but over a shorter period. As long as we get tomatoes to eat, that's all I care about. Have you ever had trouble with the foundation of the garage wicking moisture away from the plants? Is that possible? I wonder too, if somewhere in the subsoil there might be a big crack and the water is seeping down into the ground through it. When our clay soil cracks, I could stand there with a hose running all day and the water would keep draining down....the crack would never "fill up". Our sandy soil hardly ever cracks, but our first drought year here I couldn't keep plants in it watered enough to keep them from dying. After a decade of soil improvement, that's not an issue any more though. I went and bought Daconil but haven't sprayed yet. I keep trying and can't get to it before the heat gets too bad and I have to come inside. This morning, I picked all the ripe fruit I could before I came in for brunch, and then intended to go back outside, pick the rest of the ripe ones, remove the diseased foliage, and then spray. Since it got so hot so fast, I didn't get it done, so maybe I can finish it this evening when the temps drop down to some reasonable temperature like 92 or something. When you lift those plants that are failing in that one hole, do you see any signs of root knot nematodes? Other than something that is strictly a soil drainage issue, nematodes are another possibility for a plant in sandy soil that is not thriving. Other than that possibility, I am stumped. The farmer's market will be such fun. If you get hooked on selling there, you'll "have to" build a greenhouse or high tunnel so you can plant early and have the first ripe fruit at the market every year! I am leaning towards building a high tunnel before next year. It wouldn't have to be really huge. I'd be happy if I could just plant 20 or 30 tomato plants really early and know they'd be protected from the colder nights and heavy rains. If we build a high tunnel, we'll put it on higher ground than the current veggie garden so that heavy rains aren't an issue. It is so miserably hot here that I brought the outside dogs in from the garage to cool off for a couple of hours, and the feral cat who hates all the other cats and starts fights with them is even inside. He's in Tim's weight room, though, so he can sleep and chill out and not have any "contact" with our other laid-back, mellow kitties. We're pretty much in a regular routine now where the house dogs go to the master bedroom to sleep on their dog beds all afternoon, the cats go to the guest room (because the outdoor dogs like to chase cats), Yellow Cat goes to the weight room and the outdoor dogs sleep downstairs in the living room, breakfast room or kitchen. The only animals still outside are the poultry! I am eagerly watching the radar for signs of cooling rain. I do have the sprinkler on right now, "watering" the chicken coop and fenced-in poultry run in an attempt to cool it down a bit for the 10-week old chickens. Dawn

I haven't been reading all the threads on this forum or any for that matter this week with everything going on. Just read through this thread. I hate to start on a thread if I don't have time to read all of it. I could just say Ditto to what Dawn said and leave it at that. But then Dawn would be disappointed if I didn't ramble on aimlessly a little. I will address the issues in no particular order. Seranade. Last year I did like this year started off trying to go without spraying and then when I gave up already had some disease issues. I agree it is best to start if you plan to spray 7-14 days after transplant. I pruned leaves last year and then sprayed with Daconil heavy the first time and then at the regular rate and the first two on a five day rotation and after about 3 weeks things were going good. I then decided to try Seranade. No change in weather and no moisture. In five days I was in another mess. Early blight mainly and a few spot problems. I then went back to Daconil and stayed on a 7-10 schedule till Labor Day and then quit spraying and things were fine. So for me it hasn't worked well at all. I listened to the Rutgers/Cornell webex and they stated that they hadn't seen good results on a consistent basis with Seranade. Like Dawn said you need to balance that a little but have seen many say the same. Think it may work under certain conditions. This summer I have used Daocnil mainly along with two forms of copper and may try another. Copper seems to work better on the spot and speck. Daconil covers more diseases and works well especially on EB. I didn't spray during the last rainy spell due to rain every night. Not complaining. I did spray one night and got two inches a few hours later. When the rain quit and it warmed up I had some spot so sprayed with Copper. The EB took ahold again. So have been trimming leaves and spraying with Daconil and think I have it under control again. I have read some of the organic controls and have tried some from sources I respect. I haven't tried the skim milk yet but may sometime. Did try the peroxide this summer and may try it as a preventative next year. I saw some promise to it. But just thought I had better go with what I trusted as the insect borne diseases were getting so many didn't want to lose any I could possibly save. Think in a normal year that it might be enough. But will have to use it for a few years to make my final judgement. I usually try to go by the label on spraying schedules. Most will say 7-10 days or 5-7 days. I have seen several back east spraying every day or every other day and some have lost every plant and some have only lost a few after the Late Blight hit. Fortunately I have no real experience with late blight. With Early blight as a preventative I've had good results on a 10 day schedule if you have little or no rainfall and not many heavy dew mornings. If the dew is heavy or you have rainfall I would decrease that. With copper most of mine say from 5 days up. In a rotation I spray on the 5th day if weather allows. Now we get into some of my observations and opinions. Like I stated earlier in the year. I have less problems and better results in a normal year with plants planted late and even volunteers. There have been a few exceptions. This year is holding true. I put out several late for several reasons most covered in earlier posts. From me breaking off a few, early wilt on a few and then I had some plants that I wanted to grow that got stunted in a new seed starting mix also had a few nice plants left in the frames when I went to clean them out although most were rootbound and should of been out weeks earlier. This year is a typical year for them. Even the stunted plants have took off. No disease and setting fruit. Will they ever be as big of a plant. No. Will they produce more fruit per plant than the early ones when you figure all the ones I lost. Yes and I feel more. I know a market gardener not far from me and she is like me. She grows a few earlier ones because there is more demand and they sell higher earlier. But like she said the plants that really start producing around Sept 1st will do better and produce more with less care here in our climate. She is about 80 miles SW of me in the TX Panhandle. For me if I want to stay mainly organic later planting is the best in a typical year. I will continue to scatter my plantings from early to late so I can cover my bases. I'm also trying some direct winter sown and also starting some in the cold frames and then going into the garden a few days after they break the ground. The ones started outside seem to be healthier. And can withstand elements a little better. With all of this said I still haven't found a good plan for the insect borne diseases except rain. And they have been my big problem this year. And the other thing is stress caused by weather conditions. I was looking at some last night I had been threatening to pull for 7-10 days. They are looking better now and the purple is going out of most of the leaves. Shows it was stress and weather related. I've found no sure way to tell besides time or sending off a sample. Final summary is that Daconil works for me. The copper's work for a few specific problems. The Garlic Barrier spray I used this summer controlled most insects if applied on a five day or less schedule. It doesn't control hornworms or psyllids. BT and Spinosad worked on most of those that it didn't except the thrips. I didn't have near as many but a few. And that could of been because I wasn't spraying on a five day schedule. One thing I plan on trying next year is peroxide and Garlic Barrier on a 5 day rotation starting a week after transplant or emergence. Many say healthy plants will withstand a disease problem. I feel that it really helps but had some of my biggest and healthiest go down. And when it comes to the insect borne diseases I don't see much that help. Many say to kill all weeds around. But like I've told Dawn I've seen some of the best tomatoes this year growing is weeds and bermuda grass. i know one friend who let weeds grow in her plants and one marker grower who leaves all sunflowers. Saying they attract the insects that carry the diseases away from the tomatoes. i feel there is some truth to that. Hope your plants recover and do well. Jay

All colors have some kind of antioxidants. The difference is the kind of antioxidants and concentrations. lycopene gets touted because of a few studies that cite specific benefits (like prostate) but yellow and orange have other carotenoids which also have their own antioxidant benefits. Levels of all carotenoids can be increased by other genes which increase cholorophyll levels, which then get changed into carotenoids, however there is some genetic drag associated with these genes and we really havent seen them come into play. These are high pigment genes and modifer genes to the levels of lycopene vs carotene. The green flesh gene that makes browns and purples does increase cholorphyll levels but most stays green rather than converted into some a carotenoid. Lycopene synthesis is still normal in such fruits. Such fruits, like 'Cherokee Purple', may also have increased levels of anthocyanins which are different then the ways mentioned above or in "P20" type fruits. Anthocyanins are not typically produced in tomato fruits but rather other parts of the plant. High vitamin C 'Double Rich' and high vitamin A lines can be found but most do not care for their flavors. High Vitamin A lines are typically orange (beta-carotene) so there is some association with color there. More about nutrition but not having to do with color necessarily. Tomatoes have other health benefits/antioxidants such as quercitin/rutin which is a bioflavanoid. Most tomatoes don't have that much quercitin but rather its conjugate rutin (conujugates are similar molecules usually only different by a proton like NH4 vs NH3). There seems to be a rate limiting step of converting the rutin into quercitin. Such benefical bioflavanoids are located almost completely in the peel and are highest in cherry fruits grown in high light, warm, southern climates. The biolflavanoid concentrations of larger fruit are much lower than smaller fruit. The primary amino acid is glutamic acid. Variations in amino acid content can be attributed to genetics and environmental nutrition. Amino acid content can be altered by fertilizer rates (higher rates of N). Glutamic acid, aspartic acid, serine and threonine are present in ripe fruit but most of the other amino acids decrease as fruit ripens.