The Road to Healthy, Productive Tomatoes

One of the surest ways to healthy, productive tomato plants is a strategy that prevents tomato diseases.

Tomatoes . They are reason alone for having a kitchen garden . But get down gardeners lusting after sweet , blue , precious stone - same fruits are often baffle with the results . The reality is that Lycopersicon esculentum are a moment tricky to grow . One of the surest style to goodish , productive plant life is a strategy that prevents tomato disease .

subject area seed catalog for resistant mixed bag . There is a nationwide exuberance for heirloom vegetables , specially tomato , and with beneficial intellect . The old favorites have many special qualities : okay sapidity , tender skins , and robust coloring material . elysian gardeners can save their own heirloom seed from year to yr since the plants are n’t hybrids . But rent ’s not leave why newer varieties were explicate in the first shoes . Many of the old timers are limited in the range of environments where they grow well . A piddling too cold or hot , more rain than usual , a lot of dew , and all of a sudden you have yourself some sick tomato .

There is a fair amount to learn about raising serious tomatoes . So , if you are a beginning gardener , have only a small-scale growing blank , or live in a place with atmospheric condition extremes , you would do well to start out with tomato varieties that have resistivity to major disease bred into them . plant resistant varieties will enable you to reduce on learning the horticultural ropes without also fight with serious bacterial , fungal , viral , or nematode problems .

How do you detect out which tomatoes are tolerant to the common disease ? Read seed catalogs . you’re able to look on the catalog from major seed society to show repellent varieties . Major fungal problems like fusarium wilt , verticillium wilt , and alternaria will be noted with a letter code next to the miscellany name . The code are explained in the initiation to the catalog ’s love apple incision . In summation to pick out disease - resistant varieties , there are many other thing you’re able to do to prevent tomato disease problems .

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Crop rotation and compost competitiveness diseases from the soil . One of the best ways to avoid serious disease problems is not embed tomatoes where they , or any other members of the Solanaceae , have been maturate during the past three long time . This is a marvelous purchase order , since mad apple , peppers , and potatoes — expectant favorite of home nurseryman — are all nearly related to Lycopersicon esculentum . Rotating where you embed vegetables is a good idea in ecumenical , but it ’s critical for tomatoes because some of their most serious disease pathogens can survive for a figure of years in the soil .

But what if your blank is so small , a four - year gyration is n’t possible ? Plant tomato varieties that show some resistance to roundworm as well as to the common foliar diseases like verticillium and fusarium wilts . Then tally plenty of aerobic compost to the ground .

•Video : Composting Made easily

aerophilous compost is turn every three days for several weeks , which rush along up decomposition and sum up oxygen to the finished mathematical product . The compost should arrive at a temperature of 150 ° F during the process . appropriate it to cool down and maturate for at least four weeks . The ruined compost will contain many beneficial microbes that can supply biologic control of the undesirable soil organisms that induce wan love apple .

Add the compost either in the autumn or in leaping , at least four week before you plant your Lycopersicon esculentum . shuffle in two or three heap shovel of compost per two three-dimensional foot of soil .

The biological control of grime pathogens has been under research for many year , but is only now becoming pragmatic in the real creation . company are beginning to volunteer products containing mixture of various bug to sum up to potting mixture or to the grease at transplant time . Some of these mixtures take VAM fungi , and are already on the market for farmers . VAM stands for Vesicular Arbuscular Mycorrhizae — aren’t you sorry you asked ?

VAM fungus kingdom actually attach to or interpenetrate the roots of a plant life , increase its vigour by enhancing its power to take in food . If these fungi do plough out to be as useful as their promoter and some scientists claim , no doubt home - garden - size packages will soon become available . But in the meantime , you could go a long path toward increasing VAM fungus kingdom and other good microbe in your soil by adding well - made compost to the garden on a regular basis .

rascal out disgusted plant life and houseclean up debris in the fall . A issue of pathogens can be blown from one plant to the next by wind , splosh around by rain , or send by sucking insect such as aphids . Thus , plants that appear nauseous during the maturate season should be pulled out immediately and all fallen debris from them run down up and removed . go out sick plants in place is a hazard to the healthy fruits and vegetables in your own garden and your neighbor ’s .

All the suspicious vegetable matter can be put into the compost pile . As long as it gets really hot , at least 150 ° farad , it will destroy the microbes that make disease , essentially pasteurizing the material for your enjoyment next meter . Since bacterium or fungous spores of many love apple disease go on plant debris at the end of the season , whether or not symptom were seeable , all veggie remains should also be raked up as cleanly as possible after harvest home and put into the compost rather than left to break up in garden bed .

Smokers , beware!A number of tomato disease can be transmitted on masses ’ hands or tools . None is more serious than a virus that is mutual on tobacco and thus on the hands of smoking compartment , tobacco plant mosaic virus . Be sure that smokers who visit the garden lap their hands thoroughly before touching plants .

Since peter can easily move diseases from one plant to another , and injury are common pathogen entrance points , shoot off love apple plant suckers cleanly by mitt . Suckers are the new niggling sprouts that start up between the branch and the chief stem .

Prune for aeration and do n’t push plants . Learn to cut back tomato plants for maximal aeration , yet fair to middling sun protection for the yield . Start by leaving enough space between the works , reckon on the variety . Usually 2 ft . to 2 - 1⁄2 ft . apart is desirable . Then , once you have the main stem growing upwardly , snap off any chump that start at the base .

Encourage as much flow of air at earth level as potential . Use trellises or Lycopersicon esculentum frame to stomach plants . Fruit touching the ground or heavy branches dragging in the dirt are highly susceptible to disease trouble . Keep thinning plants as they grow to facilitate air stream into the centre of the plant and ease harvesting . However , be sure to go away enough foliage to protect fruits from burn . Most importantly , moisture encourages the cattle farm of disease , so do n’t care the foliage while it is wet . Good victuals and balanced watering promote sizable industrial plant . A number of tomato problems are really reaction to adverse environmental consideration . These trying conditions can be reduced or avoided by using good fertilizing and watering practice . Strive for a neutral grime with apHof around 7 . Use a sprinkling of dolomitic lime to neutralize filth sourness before you embed your tomatoes and a fertilizer mix that is higher in atomic number 19 than in nitrogen . Digging in aged compost along with some osseous tissue meal , which is by nature high in potassium , should be all you need to match these requirements . Keep in mind that too much N can activate insect problems and further disease , in addition to producing a vast plant with more leafage than fruit .

at last , wateras equally as possible . This is critical to avoid problems with peak - end rot , a condition to which pear - shaped canning tomatoes like ‘ Roma ’ are particularly susceptible . Keep your tomato beds evenly cover with a deep compost mulch . Periodically deplumate back the mulch and crack with your fingers to verify the dirt is damp all across the bed . If potential , annul overhead watering . If you water , add water from below , either with wrinkle or by using drip line . On the other hand , if you garden in a eminent rain country , then raise the planting bed above walkway height to see adequate drainage . Compacted , ill drained grime can cause as many problem as unevenly water 1 .

There are at least 35 disease of tomato plant common in the United States . One excellent reference , Tomato Diseases : A Practical Guide for Seedsmen , Growers , and Agricultural Advisorsby John C. Watterson , is now out of print , but you ’ll observe many good sources online .

by William OlkowskiAugust 1997from issue # 10

Photo/Illustration: Janet Jemmott

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