Thursday, June 11, 2009

Heirloom Tomatoes---Disease Rears Its Ugly Head

I've encounted a slight disease problem with my heirloom tomatoes. It all started after a particularly long stretch of rainy weather. Cowlick's Brandywine was the first to show signs of bacterial speck. Once the foliage was dry, I removed the foliage that was infected and threw it away. We've hit another rainy and humid patch. The speck continues to plague Cowlick and now it has moved onto Constoluto Genovese. Ugh! My knee jerk reaction is to pull these two plants before they infect the other 8 along that section. I think what I am going to do is to continue to remove the foliage with a good bit of speck and hope for the best for this season. Heirlooms may not have the disease resistance of modern hybrids, but I don't want to give up on them yet. Especially not before I get my first taste of them. If it continues to spread heavily in the next week or so, I'll just cave and go to the nursery to get replacement plants that have more disease resistance for those spots. I'm willing to hold out and see what happens though first.

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