Boy this is a tough one for me because you just never know. It will be easier if I just say all my varieties are doing well this year EXCEPT my F4 Brandy/NAR cross which looks out of place all brown and yellowed amongst my other plants. KBX has always been a strong resistant grower for me but this year it has some ugly yellow/browning going on on the bottom third of the plants. This is why this is tough because something you think is great against resisting disease all of a suddun disappoints one year. I would say that the best producing never say die tomato plant that I've grown for many years is Big Beef. I have no idea how you could ever even kill that thing. It will thrive growing in a crack of a sidewalk...;-)

Agree with Big Beef. Otherwise mine so far this year are the Champions, Arkansas Travelers, Daniels, Biltmore, Bloody Butchers, Abe Lincoln, and Brandy Boy. All the Amish Paste plants and all the Stupice plants are in bad shape despite weekly Daconil. 10-12 other varieties are holding their own with only minor to moderate EB problems.

Dave

bigdaddyj

I have a theory about growouts of combined open-pollinated tomatoes, and it has to do with hybrid vigor, which I don't know a lot about. But I suspect that the F1s of combined plants are likely to have the strongest tolerance for diseases compared to the grow-outs IF there is something in either variety that provides the tolerance.

I'd really like to create a hybrid using Goose Creek and Brandywine, and actually intended to do that this year. But things heated up so quickly in June that there wasn't a good time to do it. The pollen has to be able to develop in conditions of low humidity and heat. Our nights have been cool, sometimes lower 60s, but daytimes are anywhere between 85 and 98 degrees. I don't think they are good temps for pollen production, since I don't see a lot of new babies forming in the garden. And soon it's going to be too late to pollinate a blossom and have it grow out into a ripe one for seeds. (Live and learn!)

Be that as may be, Carolyn did say in the thread from last year that a variety might have tolerance one year and not so much the next -- that's why it's probably a good idea to grow them more than once.

I have some Big Beef F1 seeds, so maybe I'll need to plant them next year to avoid so much disease. Many of the varieties I grew this year are new to my garden because I wanted to expand my horizons. I'll grow Sun Gold and Goose Creek again next year for sure, maybe the Opalkas. I've been surprised that they didn't ALL come down with Septoria or Early Blight. Not sure about the others that seem to be tolerant. If the Opalkas make a great sauce I'll probably grow one plant of them next year. If not, I might substitute some Rutgers for a sauce-eating tomato.

digdirt

I see that some of yours are the same as last year's, and I may include Arkansas Traveler in my repertoire next year based on your experience, along with some Brandy Boys and the Big Beefs. I have seeds for both, will need to get the AT seeds.

Are your Arkansas Travelers the originals or one of the later versions?

I have the three Harris hybrids waiting in the wings, too -- Moreton, Jet Star, and Supersonic. So, if I add Sun Golds and Goose Creeks, my dance card is almost filled for 2011! That's eight right there.

I also plan to space the varieties more generously next year in hopes that they can breathe better, even though I've got them spaced at 2.5'-3' this year.

This information from the University of Arkansas about the Arkansas Traveler varieties is why I asked which version you had.

There is Traveler, Traveler 76, and Arkansas Traveler (which some say is now extinct). The other two versions are pink and apparently cherished by home gardeners who grow it -- are not grown commercially.

In high desert AZ, I find that potato leaf plants are ignored by the leaf hoppers(they carry curly leaf virus) and resist soil diseases later in the season. I try a few traditional leaf large plants every year but really only smaller determinate plants like roma and rutgers seem worth it at all. I am keeping better records this year and planted a lot more open pollinated potato leafs so I will see if I am really on to something. I am carefully stripping off lower branches and leaves for the coming death from below in august. I have had brandywine(burpee version) make it until almost Christmas before.

Anney I am growing Goose Creek for the first time this year and it's 99% green leaves which is excellent disease wise for this organic non Daconil gardener!

Mine are still green. Are yours the pink or the red GC's? That is if yours ripened any yet. My only big ones to ripen so far are Brandy Boy, Gary O Sena and Hege German Pink. I have 31 plants this year and decided to give Big Beef a year's vacation....;-)

BDJ

My Goose Creeks are reds and were the very first to ripen, except for the Sun Golds. They also made pretty large tomatoes, 1/2 to 1 pound, some a few ounces more. I checked the skin carefully from the first one -- it was yellow. Here they are before fully ripened. The large one is a double 18 oz.

I sowed them inside on March 4, and transplanted them on April 17, harvested these on June 27. They colored up beautifully! Besides the few Brandywines I've been able to harvest before "the yellows" took out the plants, the Goose Creek was the best taster to me.

hi anney,

my two plants still produceing are bloody butcher,spohie
choice, aplause, and fireworks, northlights ars done.

the sophie choice and bloody butcher are still produceing
with very little dying leafs,the best tasteing has been
spohie choice by far.

les

Anney, I'll be succint, well I guess I wasn't now that I see what I wrote. LOL

Having grown the number of varieties I have I cannot name ANY that are reliably tolerant to foliage diseases every single time they're grown, which means growing a variety once isn't enough experience with that variety to make a conclusion IMO.

Disease pressures in terms of where and when the spores for the two common fungal ones and two most common bacterial ones is highly variable from place to place, meaning everything from local gardens to larger areas and so some years they aren't even present and some years they are, in any one location. And the number of spores is also highly variable.

Foliage infections are, like most but not all other tomato infections dose dependent if you will, meaning how many are around and how many it takes to initiate infection

On top of that you've got HUGE variabilities with weather in local gardens, from folks in different parts of the country and weather is a VERY strong factor as regards foliage diseases and infection.

Sorry to kinda cop out here, but I am. LOL Sure, I could say this one or that one never got any fungal foliage diseases ( and I should say the year I grew it), but the next time I grew it it was decimated by Septoria Leaf Spot. And the third time I grew it it had both Early Blight ( A.solani) and Septoria Leaf Spot and Bacterial Spot b/c multiple infections are not uncommon.

And so it goes.

Carry on. ( smile)

Carolyn

I thought you were succinct in the other thread, Carolyn. This is primarily a comparison of varieties we've grown with each other under the same growing conditions, at least for me. There are definite differences, so it isn't a matter of whether the spores are present year after year or are instead sporadic but rather how varieties do when the various spores ARE present and some are infected while others are not, even though the foliage may be touching each other.

Of course there are several foliage diseases that plants can be infected with, and that complicates everything if one rears its head that wasn't present the year before.

It's all relative, though to what I'm not sure.

Anney my GC was planted out about a week to 10 days later than yours. My greenies look smallish. Nothing even near a pound. I'm estmating they will be in the 4 to 10 ounce range. Can't wait to see what color mine will be! RL and very disease free but then I'm having a good season so far disease wise....;-)

How do you tell the difference between Septoria leaf spot and EB? I'm growing two new varieties this year, only 1 repeat, and still a newbie so can't tell ya.
I keep hearing about Sun Gold. Where can you get the seed for that, and is it a red indeterminate tomato?

novice, many seed companies sell Sun Gold, try Fedco Seeds or Pinetree Seeds, both in Maine. Burpee also sells them but some here have had problems with mixed seeds or wrong seeds or wrong results from the Burpee packaged seeds. They are a vigorous indeterminate plant that has a peculiar smell to the foliage and the fruits are a golden orange color. They are an F1 hybrid.

Hope this helps.

Anney,

You are evaluating very disease susceptible varieties to see which one is most disease tolerant. That is not very logical.

Tomato plants show foliage disease in direct proportion to the acyl sugar levels in the leaves. The heavier the fruit load, the more demand for sugars and the less acyl sugars in the leaves and the more likely the plant is to be damaged by foliage disease. Said another way, there is a direct relationship between foliage disease and fruit load. More fruit equals more disease.

All commercial varieties available today are highly susceptible to Septoria, Early Blight, and Late Blight, and most are susceptible to bacterial speck and spot. You will not find any varieties that can stand up to serious disease pressure.

There are varieties available that have variable levels of disease tolerance. Eva Purple Ball for example is the most disease tolerant common variety in my garden. That is true year after year. It is totally susceptible to late blight, but seems to tolerate both septoria and early blight to some extent and is rarely damaged by bacterial diseases.

Randy Gardner has done quite a bit of work with tomatoes that have some level of early and late blight tolerance. Mountain Magic and Plum Regal are two that will be widely available next year. Don't expect miracles with them. Do expect them to stand up better to disease pressure that takes down all other tomatoes.

I am growing about 10 of Randy's F1 crosses between a highly disease tolerant line and selected heirloom varieties including one with Brandywine as a parent. I hope to find a few that combine good flavor with better than normal disease tolerance.

I am also growing a few varieties from TGRC that have very high levels of tolerance to some diseases. LA2533 is highly tolerant to late blight. I don't know yet which gene it has for tolerance but hope comparisons with some of Randy's lines will help sort it out. It may be the PH3 gene which gives high levels of tolerance to late blight race 0 and race 1 or it may be another gene which might be synergistic with some of the other tolerance genes. Regardless, I will be growing it this year to see what it does.

DarJones

I am growing about 10 of Randy's F1 crosses between a highly disease tolerant line and selected heirloom varieties including one with Brandywine as a parent. I hope to find a few that combine good flavor with better than normal disease tolerance.

*****

Darrel, I'm also growing several of Dr. Gardner's crosses that you mentioned above, including the one he's temporarily calling Randy's Brandy and I too am interested in seeing what they do. He's also had them trialed by some local folks near where he lives. I'm pretty sure Craig is growing some of them too b'c he raised all my plants for me this year and shipped them up, so the seeds went to Craig, not me.

So fingers crossed.

Last summer I was very impressed with his Mt. Magic F1 and Plum Regal F1 in terms of Early Blight which I almost always deal with and yes, the person who gardens for me now did spray with Daconil b'c of the Late BLight thread but it was so darn rainy that I know we couldn't keep up with good protective coverage, so many of my other varieties got both EB and some Septoria, but not those two.

For folks who are wondering, the two I just mentioned were supposed to be made public this year by Bejo seeds in the Netherlands but it didn't happen and fingers crossed for 2011.

Some of you may remember pictures here from Mulio who also grew them last year.

I was able to distriibute seeds for both of the above to about 50 folks this past Spring and I think some of those folks also post here, and soon I'll be putting up a thread at the place where I offered those seeds to look for feedback on performance this summer.

Historically the two persons who have done the most research on Early Blight have been Dr. Tom Zitter of Cornell and Dr. Gardner, formerly with NCSU, now retired but still active with his breeding programs. I haven't seen any releases from Zitter to date, so I'm betting on Randy at this point. ( smile)

Carolyn, who couldn't determine Late Blight tolerance with those two b'c she lucked out and didn't have any LB last summer, and fingers crossed for this year b'c she's in the NE target for same and watches the Cornell updates for confirmation of LB in NYS as well as the surrounding states.

Carolyn

Dar
You are evaluating very disease susceptible varieties to see which one is most disease tolerant. That is not very logical.

Why is that "not very logical"? If there are disease-tolerant varieties of tomatoes, that's what we seem to be identifying.

Maybe the problem is in word-meaning. By "foliage disease-tolerant plants", I didn't mean Late Blight, which I neglected to mention. I know that some posters in the areas that had it noted that some varieties weren't infected. But that is one disease I didn't consider in my thinking since it is usually rare in my part of the country, and I don't know what that means about the varieties or growing conditions, etc.

So while Late Blight wasn't stipulated as being outside the parameters of consideration, I intended it to be.

I also did not mean "tolerant" to indicate "never gets infected". It could mean that as well as something in the variety that slows the progression of the disease on individual plants, whereas the really susceptible varieties succumb relatively quickly.

Furthermore, I was referring only to common foliage diseases -- primarily alternaria (early blight), bacterial speck & spot, and septoria in my area. I assume that others who noted their healthiest plants were also referring to common foliage diseases in their local areas, not plagues or rare diseases!

So with that narrowing down of disease parameters, there DOES seem to be room to make some conclusions. If I have a row of mature plants of differing varieties and by now the foliage is intertwined or at least touching each other and there is one healthy green plant in the middle of yellowing diseased leaves (say, early blight) of those around it planted at the same time and with the same relative growth and production, it isn't unreasonable to conclude that the healthy-looking one is perhaps resistant to the disease or diseases that are infecting the other plants. Particularly if the same variety is disease-free every year it's grown in the midst of early blight-diseased tomatoes.

All things considered, I really don't think this is an exercise in futility, and maybe that isn't what you're saying.

We know and trust indications of tomato varieties that are resistant to the verticillium and fusarium races of disease, most of which have been introduced into the hybrids by breeders. But not everything about disease-resistance has been intentionally introduced by breeders, of course, and we will be able to identify some characteristics ONLY through amateur observation and anecdotal information for the time being. Plant genetics information still has a long way to go!

Speaking of which... I could only find information about acyl sugar levels that pertains to plant defenses against insects rather than their presence causing fungal diseases to be able to take hold. See the link below.

If elements of the acyl sugar levels act to help plants defend against insect damage, why on earth would anyone in the tomato world want to apply this characteristic to tomatoes if it also acts to increase fungal disease? At least until the elements causing the plant to respond in such ways can be made to apply separately? Maybe the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing?

Here is a link that might be useful: ...Acyl Sugar Production in Solanum pennellii...

Anney (and others),

I think in a thread of this nature it would be helpful to
start out by saying just which disease you think your
varieties may be tolerant to. Anney has done that in her
last post and I think that clarifies a lot. Thank you.

That said, as late blight has been mentioned, I will go
ahead with my own two cents and add that I have a
Malakhitovaya Shkatulka that seems to be showing some
tolerance to late blight. I have had a significant
infestation of late blight though, with a few days of
drier weather, it seems that it may be under control.
The MS (no not Microsoft, I'm just a lazy speller) is
adjacent to a spot where I had a Moreton that I had to
destroy because it was just too far gone. That suggests
to me that the disease pressure would have been fairly
high and yet this one plant did not succumb as much as
some others. Considering the many variables that have
been pointed out, I think it might be a good idea to
keep this one in mind for later observation.

I will add another post in a few minutes on the topic
of late blight in Georgia.

Anney,
About your having "neglected to mention" Late Blight,
which you say "is usually rare in my part of the country",
I immediately recalled part of a paper I recently read
from Cornell Plant Pathology on Long Island. Here's the
quotation:

"...Late blight has been occurring most years in Florida
since at least 1993. Affected tomatoes survived the cold
period in January 2010, thus late blight is expected to
keep on developing into the spring in Florida again this
year. Since 2005, late blight has continued developing
into May in Florida, which is several weeks later than
in the past. This suggests a strain has developed able to
tolerate warmer temperatures, and it means this potential
source of inoculum persists until crops are being produced
north of Florida. Tomato and potato are grown throughout
most of the eastern U.S. forming a potential "green bridge"
for the late blight pathogen (Phytophthora Infestans) to
progress through. Several strains found as far north as
Pennsylvania in 2009 are thought to have moved this way
..."

This paper has been quite helpful to me in other ways too.
It is dated 3/31/2010 and the link is here:

http://www.longislandhort.cornell.edu/vegpath/late_%20blight_gardeners_2010.pdf

Just thought you might be interested. I hope you stay
lucky.

sneezer

Thanks for the information. I hope we stay lucky in this area, too.

Actually, the South has had outbreaks of Late Blight for years, but it has tended to occur, well, late in the growing season! :-) And it hasn't become epidemic as it was last year in the Northeast.

Usually that means if growers find it on their plants, the season is nearly over anyway, and if it's home gardeners, they have tended not to worry so much since most tomato plants don't last all season anyway because of the heat and humidity.

It's hard to tell from the data so far, but Southern growers might be more alarmed if the date for the initial Late Blight moves closer to mid-summer. My concerns are if it becomes widespread in the South as it was in the Northeast, unlike Late Blight in the NE, many places do not have freezing weather to kill the spores (though we do each year in this Piedmont area at the foot of the Appalachians). I can imagine that Late Blight becomes a disease fixture in the South that we'd be hard-pressed to deal with. In that case, I guess we'd ALL be looking for a wider range of disease-tolerant tomatoes.

I was just thinking about this before when I was in the garden this morning. I'm growing nothing but old commercial OPs this season and the most beautiful and healthy plants are Norduke.

Are your Arkansas Travelers the originals or one of the later versions?

Anney they are the original OP Arkansas Traveler (1970) and sold with that name. It is Traveler (no AR), the 1971 edition and Traveler 76, that is so impossible to find now - and I have tried. ;)

But Bradley (OP, big determinate, wilt-resistant) is a good sub for it and we always grow them as well.

Dave

Traveler seeds are sold at many places and if anyone is interested in Traveler 76 Mike at Victory Seeds lists it and explains the difference between the two.

Carolyn

Bradley
Ozark Pink
Arkansas Traveler
Traveler
Traveler 76
Burgundy Traveler

Of these, Burgundy Traveler is a significant improvement on all the others but it can be a bit bland some years. This happens to be one of the best years I've seen for Burgundy Traveler in this area. My MIL is gathering about 30 pounds of tomatoes daily from about 30 plants. They are well formed and outstandingly good flavor. The difference this year seems to be that they have been grown under a bit more moisture stress than we had the previous years.

DarJones

Traveler seeds are sold at many places

Carolyn if one Googles 'Traveler tomato seeds' all you get is Arkansas Traveler results, not Traveler, and that is what we grow - Arkansas Traveler - dk. pink 6-8 oz. late season.

But it is the Traveler (1971 modification) several of us down here have been trying to find. I got some Burgundy Traveler from Darrel this year along with some Daniels and those along with the Ozark Pink and the Bradley we grow are all doing well with only a smidge of Early Blight.

Of course right now it is pouring rain and 70 mph wind so no telling what they will all look like in the AM. :(

Dave

Anney,

I'm not critiquing, just want to be clear that foliage disease tolerance is VERY low in virtually all commercial tomatoes. There is one exception and that is for Early Blight. WV700 is an old commercial line that somehow wound up with a gene that gives relatively good tolerance to infection. This gene made its way into several other varieties over the years. It is probably the gene that Eva Purple Ball has which gives good disease tolerance.

There are two mistakes to avoid; to think that a plant with low fruit load is somehow resistant, and to think that a vigorously growing plant is resistant. Low fruit load can easily result in reduced foliage damage. A plant that grows fast enough can produce new leaves faster than old leaves are destroyed with the caveat that it has to have the soil nutrients, sunshine, etc to maintain the growth. So long as you are selecting varieties that measure up for production, you can indeed make some interesting observations.

Keith Mueller crossed Big Beef X Eva Purple Ball for me a few years ago. I've been growing out and stabilizing the resulting cross for a few years now and have a significantly more disease tolerant line than either parent. It stands up much better to nematodes than Eva Purple Ball and it handles foliage disease better than Big Beef. Production is phenomenally heavy though I have to say that flavor is still mediocre. I'd like to incorporate Late Blight tolerance into it and have sent Randy Gardner some seed hoping he can make a cross this year.

Septoria is a sticky problem. There are exactly 2 lines in TGRC that have noted Septoria tolerance. I'm going to get both of them out for next season. I have not seen any tolerance in any variety that I have grown so far.

DarJones

Carolyn if one Googles 'Traveler tomato seeds' all you get is Arkansas Traveler results, not Traveler, and that is what we grow - Arkansas Traveler - dk. pink 6-8 oz. late season.

****

Yes, I know that via Google it does come up as Arkansas Traveler. I was just being ultra correct. LOL

(But it is the Traveler (1971 modification) several of us down here have been trying to find. I got some Burgundy Traveler from Darrel this year along with some Daniels and those along with the Ozark Pink and the Bradley we grow are all doing well with only a smidge of Early Blight.)

*****

I don't know about a 1971 modification of Traveler, which was released in 1970 as I recall. This AM I can't find my wonderful link to the U if Arkansas which outlines the sequence of varieties that were released.

All I can remember is that Traveler was followed in 1976 by Traveler 76 and I was noting that that one, which is hard to find, is listed at Victory Seeds.

About Burgundy Traveler. Other than Marianne Jones at mariseeds saying she got the seeds from Darrell Merrell in Oklahoma and not seeing anything about it being bred by U of Arkansas and knowing that as late as 2005 there were no listings for it in the SSE YEarbook, is it being assumed by some of you that it's related to Traveler?

Dave, Darrel, any documentation about Burgundy Traveler being related to Traveler or even Traveler 76? I just looked at a pdf put up by Lisa, Darrell's daughter who now runs the plant business and see no Burgundy Traveler. I was thinking that maybe Darrell had perhaps developed it, but no, it would have been there with Royal Hillbilly, et.

Carolyn

My Paul Robeson" and "Purple Haze" plants are doing remarkable where as other plants show just a smidge of yellowing on the bottom leaves (which is to be expected) but these two plants have none.

I'll add to this list as soon as I get out there and have a closer look but these two plants are my favorite so I watch them like a hawk. ;)

An Indian Stripe selected from hoosiercherokee's garden has done well for me the last couple years. I saved seed from a couple of those plants this year. Also, Giant Belgium and Sungold have rebounded well after developing EB.

Overall though, my experience is in line with Carolyn's remarks. In particular, I have noticed that changes in location of my plants makes a difference. So the plants grown on the outside part of my garden with more airflow and recieve the most sun are less likely to develop foliage disease or at least stay disease-free for a longer period. Last year, I placed Marianna's Peace in between a fence and another row of tomatoes and like the other plants on that row, it developed EB early on. This year I gave Marianna a prime spot in my garden and it didn't develop EB until late, after it had produced many nice fruits. I just don't have the land resources and precise controls for any conclusions.
Another observation----once plants produce their first flush of fruit, their disease tolerance goes way down.

I wonder about the genetic variability within each pack of Open pollinated seeds also. Perhaps one year, the particular seed planted from a pack comes from a healthier more resistant plant, say plant "A", while the next year the seed planted from that plant was saved from a fruit that came from plant "B" which was not so healthy. Would it make a difference if a home gardener kept selecting from the healthiest plant(s) of a particular variety each year? Or would genetic variability, therefore vigor decline?

Pete

I know for me, out of all my tomatoes, only one is showing disease. It's Italian Tree- so there goes the PL theory.

Jon, I don't think that anyone has said that ALL PL varieties are less susceptible to foliage diseases and it really does depend on the amount of spores and bacteria in any particular location that do cause the foliage diseases.

I feel comfortable saying that MOST of my PL's are more tolerant of foliage diseases than are the RL's, so I'll leave it at that being very aware that not all persons say that PL's for them are more tolerant than RL's. ( smile)

Carolyn

I also believe that the average PL's have a little better disease resistance than the average RL's. I don't spray anything and have had better luck with PL's than RL's regarding disease issues. Of course there are exceptions. I think it was Pete up above who said that tomato plants lose some tolerance after the first flush of fruit are produced. Here in my garden it seems like we start having heavy dew/fog late nights and early mornings starting in late August. That's what I have always thought my plants started suffering more from. I'm wondering if Pete's answer is more on target than mine....?

suburbangreen QUOTE:
"I wonder about the genetic variability within each pack of Open pollinated seeds also. Perhaps one year, the particular seed planted from a pack comes from a healthier more resistant plant, say plant "A", while the next year the seed planted from that plant was saved from a fruit that came from plant "B" which was not so healthy. Would it make a difference if a home gardener kept selecting from the healthiest plant(s) of a particular variety each year? Or would genetic variability, therefore vigor decline?"

suburbangreen, when I read what you wrote here I began thinking that maybe companies that grow on a large scale might not consider saving seeds from just the least diseased plants. They are in business to make money and have little concern for what happens with the seed they sell. This should underline the reasons gardeners collect their own seeds after careful observation of each plant along with a garden diary--it's very difficult to remember everything that happens in your garden year to year.