Well WHOOP-DI-DOO.
I need a lot of stuff to.

Yes, I can see from your message that you need lots of help.

Maybe you can graft potato leaves onto your needed plants. Then cut off the old leaves. Voila. You have PL of anything you want.

Actually this is the perfect example of using genetic engineering. Just grab some PL genes and stick them into the needed varieties.

Actually dangould has the seed of a good idea, taking it a bit further and more seriously, it may lead to a solution that could help this year already.

How about taking full branches of your struggling "RL" varieties and grafting them onto your potato-leafed plants? If you find that the "RL" branches do well this season, then you could graft whole "RL" plants on top of potato-leafed rootstock in future years until aggressive hybridizers make your dreams come true.

Carolyn has made that observation for years so join the club. Sure wish I saw the same thing as I would plant predominately potato leaf but mine get just as diseased as regular leaf. I basically do no spraying whatsoever. I would think you would need someone who does no spraying at all to compare the 2 and as you grow organically (no spraying?) your observations certainly are interesting.

If this is true I am surprised tomato breeders would not take advantage of the fact and produce mainly PL varieties for commercial production. It would be easy enough to do. Less spraying saves tremendous money.

Which potato leaf varieties seemed to stave off disease better for you vs what RL are succumbing? I see varieties of both leaf types that do better when compared to others in a given season.

dan/jack-
All this cutting,grafting stuff is to much like brain surgery to me. I bet there's a way we could use velcro to do this. That way you could just peal and stick what-ever you want, where-ever you wanted to at anytime.

I know it wouldn't take alot to sell this concept to someone like bigdaddyj, he'd buy into it. Hell, I might have a few of these plants growing in the back 40 right now.

farkee

Right, I don't spray anything. It is very interesting that my PL's are ALL doing better than my RL's EXCEPT SunGold which is fine and the only RL plant that is mostly disease free.

My RL's:
Brandy/Neves F1
Brandy/Neves F2
Porterhouse
Big Zac
Big Beef
Chapman
Orange Heirloom
NAR

My PL's
Sudduth Brandywine
KBX
Marianna's Peace
BrandyBoy

"If this is true I am surprised tomato breeders would not take advantage of the fact and produce mainly PL varieties for commercial production. It would be easy enough to do. Less spraying saves tremendous money."

Well, I for one am going to looking to more and more PL varieties after this year. I have been pretty lucky regarding diseases. I get the specs and spots and such later in the season where they don't do much damage. But this year is way to early for my liking.

I know Carolyn has suggested that PL's have this advantage over RL's. I have seen this evidence first hand now.

Thanx for your feedback

All my tomatoes look bad this year. Cold too late; hot too early. High winds during growth and bone dry now. This has been one crazy year and you can tell it by the garden.

I pray for a good fall to raise all gardening spirits.

A PL version of:

I have PL versions of the following:

*Neves Azorean Red
Big Zac
Big Beef
Porterhouse
*Orange Heirloom
*Chapman

What am I bid? LOL

Why don't hybridizers breed more PL's? Well, you've got your Brandy Boy and a few others I can't think of right now, but take the experience of Petoseed with the Husky series. Those varieties have rugose foliage and they were NOT well accepted by the public at all. So from a commercial standpoint I have to wonder if many PL varieties will come out of the larger commercial hybridizers such as Petoseed, Novartis, Sakata, Known-You, Harris-Moran, Takita, for instance, and all the big hybridizing firms in the Netherlands. They all saw what happened with the Husky series.

Most home growers are still growing only F1 hybrids. I think those of us who are somewhat tomato obsessed often forget that we have been exposed to many varieties that the general public has not been exposed to We here know of sources for many other varieties, many of them PL, and we raise our plants from seed while most folks don't.

I think that the best chance of having some new PL's is going to come from the breeding efforts of Keith Mueller, Bill Jeffers and a few others who are doing lots of crosses that might lead to some darn good PL varieties, and already have, actually. I'd mention Tom Wagner as well, but he hasn't released anything he's bred to the public in many many years.

Carolyn

I know you like your choclates. We could arrange something I'm sure...:)

Do you really have NAR, OH and Chapman in PL form? Man I'd be interested. I am now fully convinced PL is better than RL at resisting diseases. You were dead on for instance on the KBX. No CRUD and really strong growers! I can't wait for first ripe. I have three KBX out there all doing great. I was getting ready to boot RL KB off my 'must grow' list because of the yearly CRUD.

I have two of Lee's Orange Heirloom plants. One is doing much better than the other but even the better plant has some disease as do all my RL's in this trying growing season. I was tempted to get some Daconil but I'm sticking to my organic guns. If this were my livelihood that might be a different story.

Anyway, I predict many more PL plants in my future and less RL's. KBX was a godsend.

And as shebear hoped for in the above message maybe this season will turn around and the Jet Stream may again find us here in Delaware...:)

PS. I never grew the Huskie series. No interest in them.

Yes, do tell do tell.... I have yet to hear of a PL Orange
Heirloom.

KBX yes, but OH, no...

Sorry to hear about your problems with OH. It's a really
nice big orange beefsteak, but I too have had disease
problems with it. This year it's Cucumber Mosaic Virus that
has knocked it flat. But CMV has infected as many PL
varieties as RL, and it seems to have hit some of the
dwarves pretty hard.

I am surprised to hear that Big Beef is problematic this
year. Typically that is one of the more hardy varieties.

Lee

Lee, what type of marker do you use to write the name on the tomato? It can't be a pen; can't be poisonous, can't be a permanent marker, what is it called?

On another note, I looked up what KBX was on google. So proud of myself!!!!!!

See, Carolyn? I can do something if my mind is set on it!

And I, too, do love pl plants over rl. hint hint

I don't have the vast experience of others but like Farkee, I've not noticed a difference in foliage disease between leaf types except that for me, PLs tend to be about the same as RLs but with less dense foliage which tends to imply more damage to the plant.

Rugose types tend to have the least trouble, for me.

Do you really have NAR, OH and Chapman in PL form?

*****

No I don't.

I just thought I'd liven up the thread a bit. LOL

Some of us do see a difference re foliage diseases with PL
s and some don't. Near the end of the season most of my PL's will be standing tall and green while the RL's are down and out.

And most of the PL's I've grown, with a few exceptions, have a much better foliage cover than most of the RL's.

For me at least, I've suggested in the past that maybe it's the thicker more substantial leaves of PL's that makes them less susceptible to foliage infections/

And no, I haven't the faintest idea if that's true. I only know what I've observed over a many year period of time as to most PL's doing better than most RL's when it comes to foliage diseases/

Carolyn

Carolyn, you are such a tease...LOL

Anyway, I am seeing this year that PL's are doing much better than RL's during this particular season. This season it's cloudy all the time and it spits rain maybe 5 minutes per day which adds to .001 inch. The humidity is killer and we just can't seem to get out of this pattern....:(

Lee, I will get plenty of OH's from one of your plants and maybe a few from the other one as well. So I will get a chance to sample them. Again, thanx for those seeds. It's the bottom halves of my RL plants that are getting wiped out and there is still nice growth on the tops. I confess I really would like to spray some Daconil on them but I am resisting. I know Daconil works as I used it years ago. But I'm a stubborn person and organic growing has been fun, easy and rewarding to me in it's own little way. Also, on Big Beef, it is unusual for me too. It's as strong a grower as any but it too this year is suffering lower leaf loss.

There is a chance this weather pattern will change tomorrow. YES!