Most blight resistant tomatoes to try?

[Jeffross1968]

I've been gardening several years now. Tomatoes are my nemesis. Except for year one, I've been hit with blight pretty brutally every year. I was able to hold it off somewhat last year by using copper spray, but that is the only thing I've tried that had any effect, and because of the rain we received, I was unable to reapply each time and it eventually took hold.

I enjoy growing heirloom tomatoes for the taste. But I haven't found any that weren't the first to die. I'd like some suggestions on blight resistant varieties to grow this year.

My garden is small, but I also grow in containers on the porch. I'm in the mountains of NC.

Thank you!

[imafan26]

This table from Cornell gives you a list of the disease resistance of many of the common tomatoes.

However, be warned, if there is a lot of disease resistance built in and good looks (red round) then it probably came at the expense of taste.

Plant at the right time. Tomatoes like warm temperatures and fungal disease love high humidity. Plant your tomatoes far enough apart so they get good air circulation ( I have three tomatoes in cages about 3 feet apart ) and take off the bottom leaves that will get water splashing back. Mulch heavily and drip irrigate or tube irrigate to reduce splashing and wetting the leaves. Cage or prune tomatoes to a stake.
if the weather is humid or wet, you need to have a preventive anti fungal spray program.

Better Boy, Celebrity, and Whopper were the recommended large tomatoes for North Carolina. They will give you tomatoes but while they are good slicers, they can be bland.

Others that have done well in my hot and humid climate are Sungold, Sweet 100 or the the improved version, Jasper, Mountain Magic, Mountain Merit, (the Mountain series were bred in North Carolina). Matt's Wild Cherry, Mr Stripey (tigrella), Defiant, 1884, Red Cherry.

I am not particular about flavor so some may not be to your liking, but these are a start.

Others that did well were Early Girl, Gardener's delight, Amish paste, Arkansas Traveler, Lime Green Salad, Pruden's Purple, Cherokee Purple, and Heatwave II.

https://vegetablemdonline.ppath.cornell. ... Table.html

[Jeffross1968]

Thank you! I'll look into some of those.

I've done pretty much everything you stated. I worked really hard to keep it at bay last year, but by late July, most of what I had was already infected and no new fruit was being produced, with the exception of my red pear cherry tomatoes, that did very well until frost.

[Rairdog]

I will always have Big Beef/Super Beef and Better Boy for backup. The Better Boys hold up better for me but most say the Big Beef is more resistant.

[imafan26]

The most carefree tomatoes I have had have been the old fashioned red cherry, and another one called spoon ( I got spoon from Park seeds years ago. Three tomatoes fit in a teaspoon). They are good, sweet, but not as sweet as sungold or sunsugar. They are so prolific that even when the birds eat them, there are still plenty left. They just kept going and going and reseeding and popping up everywhere. They sprawled, weren't really watered or fertilized and grew like weeds.

I don't get much early blight, I get some late blight, but I just keep removing the lowest leaves until pretty much all I have are stems and tops. The heat resistant tomatoes will still produce in the upper nineties and since I have nematodes, I plant the majority of my tomatoes in pots, off the ground on bricks. Celebrity has nematode and good disease resistance, but it is a market hybrid here so it is not particularly rich in flavor, but makes decent sauce. Early Girl was a surprise, I did not expect and early variety to do well. It stopped producing in the 90 degree weather but lived and produced again once the temperatures dropped and it was fairly disease resistant.

Brandywine was a really good old fashioned tomato, but it needed a lot of babying. It needed to have preventive weekly fungal sprays and the fruit had to be bagged from fruit flies and the very large plant had to be caged to keep the birds out.

I used to grow Amish paste tomatoes and used them as slicers, since large tomatoes are less productive and the birds always go after the big tomatoes.

Creole tomatoes, also do very well, since it is both heat and disease resistant.

I have grown big beef and new big dwarf and they do hold up to disease.

In 2011 I had a very productive big tomato and got loads of tomatoes from them. I can't remember if it was Black Krim or Cherokee purple.

[feldon30]

I've been gardening several years now. Tomatoes are my nemesis. Except for year one, I've been hit with blight pretty brutally every year.

Are we talking early blight, which attacks tomato plants very slowly and can be completely controlled through mulching, careful watering, and application of organic or chemical treatments?


or late blight which is almost instant death:


or something else?

I'd like some suggestions on blight resistant varieties to grow this year.

There are VERY few early blight tomato varieties out there, and few are known for flavor.