Disease Resistant(REALLY!) Semi-Det, Det. or Dwarf
 

I've been growing more than enough varieties of tomatoes for long enough to know that almost all of the hype about disease(and heat and humidity) resistant varieties is just that, i.e. JUST HYPE.

But I also know from experience that there are a very few varieties that stand way out from all the others and really do resist diseases of all types... and are still standing and producing long after the rest of my plants are far, far gone on their way down in my hot and very humid, disease ridden climate.

From three plus years of growing them, my very short list( after trying lots of the well advertised so-called standbys like Arkansas Traveler, Indian Stripe, Solar this and Florida that, Porter, Sioux, I'm sure you get my drift...) of truly disease and heat and humidity resistant varieties are:

Zolotoe Serdtse
Royal Hillbilly
Gruntovy Gribovsky 1180

All of these were totally unexpected and found by chance. I would really like to add a few more to this list, (and not spend another ten year plus doing it), so I'd appreciate it if anyone can suggest some other varieties PROVEN BY SEVERAL YEARS OF PERSONAL EXPERIENCE THAT CONSISTENTLY STAND WAY, WAY FAR OUT FROM ALL OTHERS...

Thanks.

what's the main disease you deal with?

[QUOTE=TightenUp;346898]what's the main disease you deal with?[/QUOTE]

My same question. There's a BIG difference between foliage diseases and soilborne systemic diseases.

And there's really no such thing as absolute resistance to ANY tomato disease, it's tolerance, as I think you might have seen me distinguish between many times.

And different disease pressures exist in different parts of the country so it's hard to compare SC with other areas unless you know and can share with us the specific diseases you refer to.

Carolyn

Sorry, foliar diseases: Septoria, Bacterial Spot and Speck, Early Blight.

I believe that one of the keys, when you are dealing with diseases, is to grow indeterminates that grow fast enough to stay ahead of the disease. It won't help much with wilt-type diseases but I have had issues with all of the same diseases you refer to and my most energetic indeterminates seemed to fare the best. I assume that you don't do overhead watering or allow splash-back from the soil onto the plants.

mater

mater,
Drip water and rain only, and do my best to stop splash-back. I'm growing in 5 gallon buckets so "energetic" indeterminates are, while doable, not preferable. I also seem to see not a lot of difference between the indeterminates, such as the Juane Flame I have growing now and the dwarfs. The Zolotoe and Gruntovy are fast growers with more fruit set now than my other plants, but the Royal Hillbilly is a slower, later season plant. I try to trim the lower branches below the first cluster to slow development of the disease, but it's not very effective. I've trimmed nothing on the Zolotoe, Gruntovy or Royal Hillbilly and so far they are spotless.

[QUOTE=chalstonsc;347048]Sorry, foliar diseases: Septoria, Bacterial Spot and Speck, Early Blight.[/QUOTE]I've never seen any reason to pick special varieties to deal with these problems which are widely seen in Houston as well.

Are you using a fungal preventative like Daconil, Exel LG, or Actinovate?[LIST][*]Option #1 -- Daconil mixed from concentrate -- sold in a red bottle as "Ortho Garden Disease Control" and applied with an Ortho Dial-n-Spray. The pre-mixed bottles are of poor quality. And the Ortho Dial-n-Spray is far less wasteful than a backpack or pump sprayer which require premixing large quantities which must be discarded after 24 hours.[/LIST][LIST][*]Option #2 -- Alternating applications of Exel LG and Actinovate -- Exel LG is the first systemic antifungal safe for vegetables, and it's organic to boot. Alternating between it and beneficial microbes in the form of Actinovate can be as effective as Daconil.[/LIST]Also, are you using a good application of mulch and using sanitary plant handling practices as well as early morning watering with a soaker hose or drip irrigation to avoid putting plants to bed wet?

Feldon,
I never thought "special" varieties would deal with these problems either until it became very obvious after several seasons(using the same methods for all of my plants)
that these three varieties stood way far out from all the others.

While I'm not totally organic, I won't use Daconil, although I've been close to using it a couple times. I've tried both Exel and Actinovate, together, for three years and honestly, I saw no noticeable delay in the development or severity of diseases, so I stopped them last year and had if not my best year, certainly one of my better ones. I've gone as far as bleaching my containers and cages and stopped all of that last year also. I've used weed block covers on my containers to contain splash, instead of mulch, but i'm thinking about stopping that also. I do use Bio-tone to grow my transplants from seed, a Myco-grow drench at transplant and once a month light Neptune's seaweed and fish fertilizer and molasses drench, all of which produce hardiness. I use drip irrigation also, so the plants never go "to bed wet". But going to bed wet doesn't seem to be an issue , since (as probably in Houston?) pretty soon they begin to wake up wet every morning from the humidity/dew/condensation overnight.

Sounds like you are doing everything you can and are following the best guidelines.

If only one of the varieties you listed above was a pink PL beefsteak. ;)

Growing in 5 gallon buckets may well result in different plants meeting the criteria on your wish list. For example, Indian Stripe being indeterminate does better for me in the ground than it does in an earthtainer, which has far more root space than than 5 gallon bucket has.

I'm not familiar with those Russian varieties and the 3rd one isn't even on tatiana's tomatobase. I see the first one is a commercial variety and there have been commercial varieties bread to have tolerances, but, of course you give up things when you go to the commercial varieties, like flavor complexity and the ability to regrow from seed you save. On the advice of others here, I've grown the hybrid Big Beef and found it to be somewhat disease resistant and somewhat heat resistant. Where I am, the heat and disease is going to get you, its just a question of what holds out longer. I suspect that is true in lots of hot weather places.

To me, the 3 best meeting your criteria that I've found are: Indian Stripe, Big Beef and sungold. Good luck.

Dewayne mater

Feldon,
Not PL, but Royal Hillbilly is a pink beefsteak!
Dewayne,
Heat and humidity are going to get you here too, so it's all about what holds out longer here also....and these three do it significantly longer. Took me awhile to get resigned to that fact, but wish I could find some others that last as well and as long as these three. I grow all three from seed I save. Taste for them is not as good as Indian Stripe or Sungold, but pretty close to Big Beef to me. Sungold has done the best of the three, but goes down not much longer after all the rest. Thanks.

Also, check out this thread that had a lot of posts on a somewhat related topic best tomato varieties for the deep south:
[url]http://www.tomatoville.com/showthread.php?t=17946&highlight=deep+south[/url]

I'm growing Zolotoe Serdtse this year, and a bunch of other determinates, so I'm interested to see how they'll pan out, and interested in your observations! I included Early Cascade F1 in my det/semi-det group for comparison of the OP's with a bred disease resistance package. As yet they're all good, time will tell.

It seems to me that there is a point in the life cycle of tomato plants where they withdraw immune support from the leaves they don't want/need. At that point, the disease susceptibility shows up in previously healthy plants, and different diseases show up on different vars. But some plants are always prone and have leaf disease all season. There is Early Blight and Septoria in the environment here, I do my best to make a clean start but if (or when) the conditions are stressful there will be disease.

The only plant I've seen yet with exceptional disease resistance and cold/heat tolerance is Oaxacan Jewel PL (from Solana Seeds - I know, OJ should be RL but that is the name and description given by the seller - perhaps they might provide an explanation). Last year OJ-PL shared a tub with Galinas Yellow, which was plagued by Early Blight from day one and throughout the season. Not a spot showed up on the Jewel. It was not bothered by early cold, a bit late to flower and fruit but kept pumping out fruit during extreme heat when others had shut down. When the time came to drop some leaves they just turned yellow and came off clean with no sign of disease spots or messy wounds either for stem rots to start.
This year so far, I'll compare the transplant and cold stress response with other PL plants - every other one coiled up their leaves in protest of the cold transplant conditions (including Stupice, Kimberley, Pervaya Lyubov, Lotos, Pale Perfect Purple, Glacier) but not Oaxacan Jewel. Undaunted like last year, and flowering earlier this year I'm happy to see, since the fruit are really delightful. It's not a determinate but, so far, most promising in the disease resistance department.

[QUOTE=chalstonsc;346897]almost all of the hype about disease(and heat and humidity) resistant varieties is just that, i.e. JUST HYPE.

Zolotoe Serdtse
Royal Hillbilly
Gruntovy Gribovsky 1180
Thanks.[/QUOTE]

Thanks for sharing the best from your years of experience.
I am ordering Zolotoe Serdtse & Royal Hillbilly now. Where did you find seeds for Gruntovy Gribovsky 1180?

Have you tried Amazon Chocolate or Sandul Moldovan? They are the hardiest and most disease resistant in my semi-tropical garden out of the 50 varieties I have tried.

Dewayne,
Thanks for the thread....familiar with it though and many of my tried with not much luck varieties are there.

Bower, thanks for the suggestion on OJ. How large a plant is it?....I've had the same experience with Galinas.

Parah,
Thanks for the suggestions...have not tried them. Got the Gruntovy seeds in a trade...check your private messages and maybe I can send some.