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Post by michaeljohnson on Aug 29, 2009 1:08:59 GMT -5
I was reading today an article by the Savari research institute on late blight control, and apart from a lot of other info on late blight -it said that one can keep all your tomatoes and also you potatoes blight free, by covering them with polythene hats during blight time -which is usually the first three weeks in August in my part of the world,maybe varies in other parts of the world,-after which time the polythene can be removed and the plants left to the open air again, Probably the best souce of polythene sleeves is those suit covers you normally get when collecting clothes back from the dry cleaners-they seem just right for the job,other than that if one can obtain a roll of polythene layflat tubing of the right size it would be ideal to cut off at the right length and sleeve over the plants, just as long as you remember to tie up the top to keep the night air out, With rows of potatoes- perhaps that long rolls of thin polythene that farmers lay over the ground to produce early crops of forcing crops would be ideal for that job if you could obtain some, and with it only being down for about a period of three weeks until blight time had past, it would last for several years after you had gathered it up and folded it to put away until next year at the same time- and lower the cost factor a lot if you could get several years wear out of it. All this is similar to my theory of the other day when I said if one could find a way of covering all your plants during blight time it would prevent the problem, as it is only the night air that causes it, and all greenhouse and conservatory plants don't seem to get it because they are covered. This info brings new hope for next year, and new horizons to expand upon, but it seems to be worth a try.- although it is a bit late to help me this year as most of my crop is ruined by the late blight anyway- but next year-who knows
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Post by johno on Aug 29, 2009 1:26:33 GMT -5
If I did that here, the plants would be cooked in three hours. But it makes sense for a cooler climate.
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Post by PatrickW on Aug 29, 2009 4:09:16 GMT -5
It's an interesting idea, but not really all that new. It's been known for a while that growing tomatoes in a greenhouse or at least covered to keep the plants dry, helps considerably with the blight. Like Johno just said, without a little air, you will cook your plants. If you let air in, you also let in blight spores...
Doing something like this might help, but I wouldn't count on it to keep your plants blight free.
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Post by lavandulagirl on Aug 29, 2009 8:59:20 GMT -5
How small are the blight spores? I wonder if something more breathable would still allow for some protection.
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Post by michaeljohnson on Aug 29, 2009 9:34:39 GMT -5
Well yes"- it would cook them in a warm climate during the daytime hours, but not at night in the cool or warm of the night, if one could find a way round the daytime problem and open them up for ventilation during the day and only cover them at night -it would work ok, but that would be a bit labor intensive, unless someone was ingenious enough to invent a sort of zipped cover you could simply unzip during the day and zip up at night- any ingenious inventors out there - you would only have to keep it up for about three weeks during august time.
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Post by grungy on Aug 29, 2009 14:29:03 GMT -5
How about a taller modification of our hoop houses where you simply went out each morning and lifted the sides and then slid them closed in the late afternoon or early evening before it got very dampish and the wind blew?
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Post by silverseeds on Aug 29, 2009 16:35:14 GMT -5
Since heat is the issue and not to much light this might not be the answer, but maybe that clothe they use in arizona, which blocks a certain percentage of sunlight depending on which cloth you use? I mean in tandem with the polythene hats or a hoop house.
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Post by ottawagardener on Aug 29, 2009 17:43:44 GMT -5
Well, you could just use an open ended tunnel system. For example if you had your tomatoes trellised such as in the California Weave, you could then 'tent' them at night and open the ends in the morning. I would think that would still let in the spores though? Unless of course, you put in floating row cover doors on the ends but still in a hot climate you might want to add a layer of shade cloth...
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Post by canadamike on Aug 29, 2009 23:27:47 GMT -5
These techniques are only good for backyard gardeners...not me
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Post by grungy on Aug 29, 2009 23:32:38 GMT -5
What about floating row covers for larger areas. Would the weave be tight enough to prevent spores from passing through?
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Post by michaeljohnson on Aug 30, 2009 0:16:49 GMT -5
It's a bit of a problem- but in time I am sure we could thrash out an almost foolproof method that would save all our crops for us, using a simple method that would do the job without being too expensive.
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Post by PatrickW on Aug 30, 2009 3:57:04 GMT -5
I like everyone's ingenuity here, but as far as I'm aware the spores are nearly microscopic. I've certainly never seen them with my own eyes. If you build some kind of tent, or hoop house, or whatever, you also have to make sure there are no spores inside to begin with. I think if you figure out a way to build some hermetically sealed environment, with some way to let in spore-free air, you're probably going to be growing tomatoes or potatoes that cost $100 a piece.
If the leaves of the plants don't get wet, it's much harder for spores to establish themselves. Since there are often spores in the ground around the plants, protecting the plants from dirt that might be splashed up during rain or irrigation also helps a lot (ie mulch). Of course removing infected plant materials helps a lot to reduce the number of spores in your garden. These sort of basic hygiene measures are likely to help more than anything else.
Of course if you live in a area where blight spreads across the continent with the wind, there's only so much that can be accomplished with hygiene.
I do know a couple of people living in the US northeast who's plants were spared from blight this year.
I still have blight free tomatoes growing on my roof, even though plants at my community garden are toast. The fact that I shower and change my clothes before going out on my roof after coming home from the garden is probably the only reason those plants are still there. The plants on my roof probably have 100 other different tomato diseases, but no blight!
Sometimes you get lucky, and I think luck is the most important thing we have to work with at the moment.
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Post by flowerpower on Aug 30, 2009 5:53:51 GMT -5
I was spared on both maters and taters. I thought I was seeing the initial signs of blight, but, luckily, it turned out just to be wilt. It was the commercial farms here that were hit the hardest. But they had warnings from Cornell & were able to spray the crops.
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Post by ottawagardener on Aug 30, 2009 7:59:49 GMT -5
Well then low tunnels which I have seen on an agricultural scale with drip irrigation would work to keep out rain and perhaps slow the development of blight though this would be expensive.
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Post by mnjrutherford on Aug 30, 2009 10:26:28 GMT -5
OK, so take me back a step here. Where do the spores originate? Is there some way to "cleanse" an area of them prior to planting which would make the need for later controls less expensive and drastic. For me with only a dozen plants I could easily bag at night and remove early in the morning to prevent "cooking". But I am the minority. We need to figure a practical attack for all of us.
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