My Crimson Seedless vine isn't PD infested at this time, and this doc gives me some some hope that it might be somewhat resistant. That said, this Summer I finger smashed a lot of sharpshooters feeding on the vine. Some days I smashed as many as 10 within an hour. This is really a shame as CS has given me super sweet grapes that are still holding well as we speak. What a heart breaker it would be to lose this vine. It seems odd/questionable that nurseries would even sell PD prone grape varieties in areas that are known to carry the disease.

Ginkgonut - Thanks for the suggestions! I Googled them and they look wonderful. Hokie - Limelights have really made a splash in the hydrangea world, haven't they? Even I've heard of them and that means a lot since I'm such a non-gardener. They were the first variety that came to mind. Thought they might look good against some limey colored variegated hostas. I think I can only get 4 plants in this space -so I have enough room for air movement & hostas- so it doesn't look like Limelights will make the cut for this bed. Is there anything particular to hydrangeas that I should I look out for when purchasing the plant? Brown=bad is the extent of my knowledge! I've read a few comments that said it took a while for the hydrangeas to bloom. Could that be due to the size of the plant purchased? If so, what's the minimum size I should look for to get blooms next year? Don't want to spend too much since I have a lot of backyard to work on but completely understand the "get what you pay for" saying. Thanks in advance :) Jennifer

I just found your forum and might be able to offer some help.I have been working with late blight for the last 40 years and have some relevant observations. Here in Wales, we have wet summers and lots of blight in our potatoes every year. In our Sarvari Research Trust we are selecting new varieties of potatoes for sustainable and low input growing, the Sarpo varieties. Tomatoes are grown commercially in UK within glasshouses mainly by big multinational companies supplying the supermarkets. Only gardeners and smallholders try to grow tomatoes outside and many lose their entire crop most years. There is clearly a need for varieties that can ripen fruit in years when blight pressures are heavy. Seedsmen in UK offer several blight tolerant varieties and these can be useful in delaying the onset of blight by a few days or even weeks, depending on the season. We have varieties like Ferline and Fantasio from a French breeding programme and Jim Baggett’s Oregon cv Legend. The thing to remember about the pathogen (Phytophthora infestans) is that many strains exist and these will come and go over the years and what looks like a resistant variety one year can be almost totally susceptible the next year. The blight that hit the eastern states so badly last year was caused by new strains of blight that had not been seen previously. Also the blight strains that you have across the pond are quite different from the ones we have here. This means that a variety that is resistant in one region or country may be susceptible in another. So it is necessary to be vigilant and keep sceening potentially resistant material with the newest strains of blight for the region you want to grow in. The breeder’s work is never done. And heirloom varieties? These are old favourites which have survived because they have a great flavour or are good do-ers. You often find that some of the old varieties are a bit more tolerant of disease as these are the ones that are easiest to keep going over the years. But it is rare to find any that are highly resistant. And what other methods can help to control the disease? Glasshouse growers don’t get blight because the plants are kept dry to prevent the “fungus” forming swimming spores on the leaf surface just before infection. This means that if we keep our plants dry by growing them under an umbrella, they will escape infection. I did some trails some years ago to test out the use of polythene cloche “umbrellas”. The results were spectacular. Protected plants remained healthy and gave a massive crop whereas the unprotected ones yielded no healthy fruit. Another way is to avoid the blight by raising the tomato seedlings early and planting out, initially under cloches to hasten maturity. Many gardeners here use the variety Red Alert because it ripens many weeks before the others, and usually before blight arrives, usually in late July here. Also Red Alert is a fairly weedy looking plant and its sparse foliage means that the fruits are exposed to the air and dry off quickly after rain. Varieties like Legend do far better if plants are severely pruned to keep a minimum of foliage around the fruits. Another trick is to use a high temperature treatment to cure fruit that are still green but will not ripen as the blight takes over before the fruit is red. In an article I wrote for The Organic Grower (vol. 11) earlier this year “No more green tomato chutney” I describe experiments with fruits that have a latent infection that is not yet visible. These are kept at 40C (104F) for at least 12 hours and then keep in a dry warm spot indoors to ripen completely. Untreated batches of green fruit rapidly developed nearly 100% blight. So if your plants become infected with late blight, it is often best to pick all the fruit and heat treat in an egg incubator or similar before ripening indoors. Good luck with your growing.

Carolyn, thanks for returning to this conversation. Yes, that is probably the post I was thinking of. But I still feel like we're dancing around the subject... Which varieties are not prone to the genetically associated types of splitting? Further, are the genetically associated types of splitting caused by environmental stress? In other words, since I cannot entirely control the environment, I would like to control what I can, which is my choice of seed to grow. So I would like to avoid those cultivars which are prone to genetically associated cracking. Unless all cultivars are prone to genetically associated cracking, which has not ever been said. Beyond that it would be interesting to know if genetic splitting is only seen under conditions of environmental stress, and whether it happens before the non-genetically induced type of cracking in those conditions. Do radial and concentic splitting occur before the fruit gets to the point of horizontal splitting? Ah, I had better stop. My mind asks incessant questions. Beyond the scope of this discussion. Brian, thanks for your information too. My soil is mildly deficient in calcium. I did treat it with the recommended amount of lime, per my soil test results and had much less blossom end rot this year. Another soil test is in order, since I don't know if I need to keep adding lime every year, though I suspect I might given the soil type. As for the green house or hoop house to grow "perfect" tomatoes, I knew that was a solution. I'll show the boss (family joke, my husband and I call each other the boss) what you said, maybe he'll come around to the idea of one a little faster. Right now he has an unreasonable dislike of hoop houses. :) The greenhouse discussion has been going on for 3 years now. I wonder if shade cloth might help. In the field, not in getting me a greenhouse. I know I keep saying this, but thank you everyone. I really feel like I am learning alot from everyone's diverse inputs. And I like learning almost as much as I like growing plants! Cheers!