This year late blight decimated my tomatoes, even the ones that had done a bit better over the years. Out of about 80 varieties and F1 crosses one, ida gold, seemed to tolerate very well. I only had one plant, but had given one to my neighbor and that did well aswell. I had only one fruit that went bad and even ones that I collected late season stored many weeks without getting late blight symptoms. Many others that I collected around same time spoiled shortly after picking. Can’t say for certain that they are tolerant, but atleast looking good. One other variety worth mentioning is the grinch. It did have the fruits spoil around the time they ripened, but it had perfectly green leaves till the end. I think that might be helpful trait to keep the infection pressure down. I think the problem this year was that there were many weak varieties that worked as a stepping stone into the population and then to the next weakest and so on. Many varieties seemed to resist some time, but eventually had fruits mostly spoil. I would think that if the very weakest are eliminated it would take more time for late blight to establish. As the the area where my plot is has dozens of plots there is always going to be some infection pressure, but if I could just eliminate pressure in close proximity results might not be as depressing as this year.
Out of wilds pimpinellifolium and cheesmaniea did resist quite long, but eventually had fruits spoil. Not quite sure if it was late blight as fruits are so small and symptoms not exactly same as others, but it’s likely. Habrochaites did not resist more that just at start.
I don’t know yet how I’ll do in the future. This “summer” has been horrendous for tomatoes. Cold and wet, wet, wet. I was happy to get something so I just picked everything I could and cut down all plants before LB even showed on them (but it was present on potatoes already). I didn’t want to risk. I made too many crosses etc that I wanted to save.
Interesting - you ripened the crosses indoors ok? I actually processed seeds from some crossed fruit with late blight. Some quite badly. Hoping the seeds will still be ok
I grew 4 variates of hab. One suffered from late blight (LB). Another one was an early one and didn’t get LB at first, did really well, and both of those fruited well. Joseph’s and LA1777 flowered later, and Joseph’s showed some signs of LB. But by the end, actually the early one did get more LB and Joseph’s overtook it in that regard, lasted well. By the end, the first two fruited a lot but Joseph’s and LA1777 were too late, not fruit - not sure if it was merely because they were too late or if they might have been incompatible with the pollen of the others, I only had 1 plant of those 2 (actually maybe 2 of Joseph’s but not certain). Then the temp dropped to 0C on one day, and that killed the early one (which I think was already not doing well from LB by then) and killed of the flowers and leaves of Joseph’s and LA1777, though I think LA1777 looked in better shape by that time than Joseph’s. Surprisingly, 1 arcanum in a pot of 4 is still alive and still flowering now. I don’t know if that’s due to the different position or the pot, but it’s interesting. The habs were all in the ground. Other arcs in a patch of other wild tomatoes all died of LB, but they did way better against LB than the peruvianums surrounding them. This makes arc very interesting, both for cold tolerance and LB tolerance.
I came across this.
In French Mildiou is not mildew but late blight. Weird language mix up.
Poot is an interesting grower from the south of France who dryfarms/ STUNs you could say his crops in of Europe’s dryest hottest pockets for many years. He’s a firme believer in ancient varieties because they do not rely on phosphates which he believes thé world will run-out in thé not so distant future…
He doesn’t cure, he only saves seed from those plants that thrive. He has a page on thé tomatoes he sells which are blight resistant. For what it’s worth, hère goes.
Update - I checked and I did indeed have 2 of Joseph’s habs. All habs are dead except LA1777, which lost all its flowers and most of its leaves but does actually have some healthy leaves left! So it’s still going. Impressive.
Arcanum, 1 still flowering, the other 3 look dead but at least 1 still seems alive by the look of the inside of the stem - I have brought the pot inside and hope to bring them back and use them for crossing. As for domestics, Wild Gem is still alive which is pretty impressive! It’s mostly died off but still part of it has many leaves. And one derivative of Joseph’s BH line is still showing very minimal signs of life with a few very tiny leaves just alive.
2023 update: I crossed my MMM x Purple Zebra F1 with Galahad F1 and with the MMM x PH5 pimp cross in 2023. I also made crosses with Reed’s tomatoes that did pretty well for Julia last year.