growing tomatoes next season

in central pa last growing season our tomatoe plants got hit with blight because of the rainy growing season. At the end of the season I got rid of the old vines plowed the patched and planted a cover crop. Is there a spray to prevent blight? Should I use it next growing season?

I had the same problem here in Tn. last year. First time I ever had to spray for any kind of disease. I had great results with "Ortho Max" Garden Disease Control. I got mine at Home Depot but you can get it at any garden center I m sure.
But you will have to spray at least every 2 weeks and more if it rains alot. I ve already got 2 bottles of it for this year so I can get a jump on the blight and such!!!!

This blight does it cause what looks like a good healthy plant to wilt and die in a very short time? We have this happen in the south and I have never heard of any treatment for it if its the same. It would be great if this ortho product did help. As it stands I lose about 3 out of 5 plants every year.
Angle Iron

Blight can get into the soil. I wouldn't plant tomatoes in the same spot again next year. I would rotate them to a different spot, preferably the opposite end of the garden/field. We typically pull the plants out and do not compost them. We dump them somewhere away from any other fields and try and burn them during the winter. You don't want to compost them as it will get into your compost and then soil. If you notice with the blight, it starts from the bottom of the plant. This is from the splash of water onto the leaves. Put some leave or grass mulch around your tomatoes next year and it will help. If you have a black plastic/mulch layer, plant into the plastic. That helps as well.

Yes, there is spray that just coats and protects, but does not kill. Use it every week. Prune all branches off the ground. Do not let water splash from ground onto plants. Some types of blight is killed by freezing.
Go to garden web, tomato forum and use the search for blight.
punch

Based on the studies I read last summer (from such places as Cornell University) the blight will not survive freezing weather in a Tomato plant. Other plants like a potato will hold it over winter. This was the source of the potato famine they had in Ireland.

Moisture on the plant is bad. You will want to make sure the plants get lots of sun, so that the plants dry off as quickly as possible. Plant them far enough apart so that they have room to breathe. Avoid watering from above the plant, it makes the leaves wet and washes off your pesticides. Most sprays are only good for 7-10 days in sunny weather. In wet weather I wouldn't wait more than 7 between applications. Read the instructions for you spray, go for the maximum application rate in cool damp weather. If you wait to spray until you see the brown spots, it's too late. The brown spots you see are the dead plant, not the blight itself.

Good luck.

You should try some Legend tomatoes as they claim they're late blight resistant. I would use cages to keep the plants and fruit off the ground. I made mine from heavy reinforcement wire. Hal
PS: Pic of the Legend tomato.

It is not a blight, it is a virus that came from the big grower greenhouses. It will be in your soil and can do the same damage to your tomatoes this year. You can buy an innoculant to use when you start your plants or if you buy plants ask if they used the innoculant when they started them. I check with my wife what it is call she runs our greenhouse and has already purchased it for our starts and to treat what we buy from the wholesaler.

All the other posts are good advise. This year I plan on using newspaper as mulch. I will cut a small hole for the plant. I will cover the paper with pine straw, got a lot of it in the front yard. I make my own fence wire cages. I pinch the lower branches off to keep water from splashing on the leaves. Yes, rotate the plants to different areas of the garden.Pull the plants at the end of the season and throw them on the burn pile. I plant them 6 feet apart in both directions. I usually plant just 36 plants ea year. I spray with Mancozeb flowable concentrate.
I usually plant about a 1/2 acre garden. That is about all a 72 year old can handle

The newspaper will help with weeds but the ink can bleed into the soil and that may not be very good. Now if you have feed sacks with no printing on them they work real well and no ink to bleed in. I also would not use pine needles on top since pine does have something in it that is hard on a lot of plants as does walnut. Grass clippings or straw is better for mulch. I also use lot of manure on my gardens and not last year but the year before I had matos so tall they grew up and out of the 6 foot cages and then all the way back down to the ground and took off on the ground

Im not sure, buy here in NY we got the same blight from all the rain. Its a pain after all the work I put into my gardens and then that happenes.

The big news in 2009 was the late blight epidemic that affected pretty much everyone in the northeastern US. the disease is the same that caused the Irish potato famine, caused by the oomycete (very similar to a fungus, but technically not) Phytopthora infestans. It is a disease of both tomato and potato, as well as some weeds in the nightshade (solanacea) family. As far as we know, there has been only one mating type present in the northeast, which means that there has been no $ectual reproduction. if there had, there would have been produced oospores, which are very long-lived in the soil. Asexual reproduction produces zoospores, which have a very short life. Absent oospores, the pathogen requires LIVING host tissue to survive. Since your tomatoes winter kill, they will not contribute to disease next year. The common source of initial inoculum is infected potato tubers- since they can survive the winter, either buried in the field, then growing as volunteers; cull piles that don't freeze solid; or potatoes from your pantry that get tossed in the compost.

Contrary to the initial post, the rainy weather was NOT the cause of the disease last year; it merely provided the ideal conditions for the spread of the disease. There is lots more good info out there- do a google search.

As to how to prevent disease (because prevention is about all you can do; once you've got it, it's too late): for tomatoes, use disease-free transplants. The epidemic really got its start last year when the big box garden centers sold infected tomato transplants from the south all over the north east. the disease needs high humidity, so space your plants enough apart for good air flow around the foliage. staking or trellising might help with that.

as far as chemical control: use broad-spectrum contact fungicides on a preventative basis ie every 5-7 days beginning BEFORE the disease is present and continuing until the plants die. chlorothalonil and mancozeb are two excellent choices. if you're organic, copper. READ THE LABEL.

hope this helps.

Our potatoes and Tomatoes both got hit with the
blight last summer. Both members of the nightshade family. Research on the net indicates the spores stay in the soil indefinitely. So we plan to move the tomatoes to another spot far away from where they were and hope for the best. May try some of that spray.

There are a few varieties that show some tolerance and resistance to the disease. Look carefully at variety descriptions to see if the one you prefer does have it.

I think the Mountain series is being developed to have resistance. Legend is also said to have some.

Here's some of our tomatoes. Will start plants next month. Hal

(quoted from post at 08:40:57 01/23/10) All the other posts are good advise. This year I plan on using newspaper as mulch. I will cut a small hole for the plant. I will cover the paper with pine straw, got a lot of it in the front yard. I make my own fence wire cages. I pinch the lower branches off to keep water from splashing on the leaves. Yes, rotate the plants to different areas of the garden.Pull the plants at the end of the season and throw them on the burn pile. I plant them 6 feet apart in both directions. I usually plant just 36 plants ea year. I spray with Mancozeb flowable concentrate.
I usually plant about a 1/2 acre garden. That is about all a 72 year old can handle

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I think I'll use your idea on using newspapers next spring. And as far as the ink leaching into the soil, I've heard that newspapers mostly use non-toxic ink now-a-days.

I don't believe you'll want to use pine straw around tomato's, though.
Pine straw will put a lot of acid into the soil, which most veggies don't like.

Ronnie

I use shredded newspapwes for mulch. The problem is that I don't have enough. I then use straw. Hal

I took a Master Gardner course a two years ago
and newspaper was mentioned as a possible mulch. The pine straw was my wife's idea. Probably because she wants it out of the front yard.

I would like to thank everyone for the responses. As usual I learned a lot from all of you. I think this site is great and hope it continues to become available to all of us.