This Forum will close on Wednesday 27 March, 2024. Please refer to the announcement on the Discussions page for further detail.
Many questions about late blight?
Mel Mcbride
Posts: 112
Just noticed I may have blight on the lower trusses of one tomato plant. So this has raised have a dozen questions...
Does cutting off the blight parts fix the problem or should I toss the plant?
Can I pick off and eat the fruit on the parts of the plant the blight hasn't hit yet?
The plants are so close they're hugging each other. Does blight spread, and if you cannot see any.. does that mean it's not there.. or is the beginning of it invisible?
Composting. Can I compost a blight covered plant? If not, can I compost some of it, if I take off the blight parts?
Lastly, just out of curiosity, what actually is blight? Is it a disease or a life source in itself. Once it's covered and killed a plant, does it die with the host, or live on?
0
Posts
Last year I removed every leaflet which had blight on - inspecting and removing them twice a day - and the plants continued producing well. And yes, if the fruits aren't affected then they're fine to eat.
Spread the plants out a bit if you can, get some air moving between them - it will help keep the leaves dry - blight loves warm damp leaves.
Don't compost blighted plants - I bag them and bin them.
And blight is a fungal infection - it spreads by spores in the air.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Monty Don cut all the leaves off.
In the sticks near Peterborough
Ohhh, thank you so much