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**nctomatoman** · April 29, 2019

Very good information, JosephineRose - thanks for sharing. There is certainly wide arrays of experience depending upon variety and location. In Raleigh, lots of my seedling customers have gone almost exclusively to the dwarfs, away from indeterminates. Others are having issues with some of them, but they also have issues with indeterminate varieties.

There are simply so many variables. What diseases are you finding impacting the plants?

Backing up, to LDiane's original post, as to Late Blight protection (tolerance or resistance), I think it is fair to say that any dwarf will likely mirror the disease tolerance of its "family" - the impact of both the male and female components, though there is likely to be variability in releases from each family. What complicates this is that little is quantitatively known about specific disease tolerances for non-hybrid tomato varieties in general, and much of it is anecdotal. It also depends upon specific, accurate assessment of the diseases in a given garden.

I think that hot conditions, humid conditions, presence of high populations of spores for alternaria and septoria (those are the diseases that impact me the most), spacing all are significant factors for success or failure. Most of the dwarf varieties are very densely foliaged, and often disease takes hold in the center of the plants, or the rear, away from the sun.

Some well manged inner foliage pruning could be very helpful in minimizing or slowing the spread of the fungal foliage diseases.

I find weather is really impacting success for me in Raleigh as well - last year, tomatoes planted on May 1 did very well, those planted on June 1 did very poorly, with weather (heat, rain, humidity) clearly impacting the later planted specimens.

Clearly, like with all tomato varieties, there is going to be wide variation in how particular varieties do for each of you, and variability season to season is almost guaranteed. Makes it a continual challenge, but also continually worthwhile....we gardeners are optimists, if nothing else!

April 29, 2019	#7
nctomatoman Tomatoville® Moderator Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Hendersonville, NC zone 7 Posts: 10,385	Very good information, JosephineRose - thanks for sharing. There is certainly wide arrays of experience depending upon variety and location. In Raleigh, lots of my seedling customers have gone almost exclusively to the dwarfs, away from indeterminates. Others are having issues with some of them, but they also have issues with indeterminate varieties. There are simply so many variables. What diseases are you finding impacting the plants? Backing up, to LDiane's original post, as to Late Blight protection (tolerance or resistance), I think it is fair to say that any dwarf will likely mirror the disease tolerance of its "family" - the impact of both the male and female components, though there is likely to be variability in releases from each family. What complicates this is that little is quantitatively known about specific disease tolerances for non-hybrid tomato varieties in general, and much of it is anecdotal. It also depends upon specific, accurate assessment of the diseases in a given garden. I think that hot conditions, humid conditions, presence of high populations of spores for alternaria and septoria (those are the diseases that impact me the most), spacing all are significant factors for success or failure. Most of the dwarf varieties are very densely foliaged, and often disease takes hold in the center of the plants, or the rear, away from the sun. Some well manged inner foliage pruning could be very helpful in minimizing or slowing the spread of the fungal foliage diseases. I find weather is really impacting success for me in Raleigh as well - last year, tomatoes planted on May 1 did very well, those planted on June 1 did very poorly, with weather (heat, rain, humidity) clearly impacting the later planted specimens. Clearly, like with all tomato varieties, there is going to be wide variation in how particular varieties do for each of you, and variability season to season is almost guaranteed. Makes it a continual challenge, but also continually worthwhile....we gardeners are optimists, if nothing else! __________________ Craig