Late Blight breeding results

[Tom Wagner]

There is one area where I plant tomatoes every year. It is usually the first to come down with late blight and of course, I do not every spray for control. I think the blight is fully entrenched in the soil here and no effort is made to clean up the debris in any year. This plot is just outside Monroe, WA.

It appears that Ph-2 and Ph-3 are still operative in controlling the outbreak.

Make My Day is one that has both the Ph-2 and Ph-3 gene in a homozygous pairing. No blight. It is related to my Skykomish variety which is also tolerant to blight.

Matt's Wild is homozygous for Ph-2. No blight.

The tomato hybrids that have Ph-2 from one parent have slight resistance to the foliage, but not as much control on the fruit as I would like.

Hybrids with Skykomish which is homozygous for Ph-2 and Ph-3 have slight resistance.

I will check the progress as the blight burns through. It started about three days ago.

With many, many hybrids of these lines being put away as F-2 seed, a fuller evaluation for 2011 will be to look for segregations that are true breeding for the best blight resistance/tolerance. Homozygous traits need to be found in every time of tomato, whether is a red, bi-color, green, striped, black, yellow, etc.

I don't know which strain is going through the area but it seems to be similar to the one we had here in 2004 and 2007, whereas Ph-2 was workable. 2008 knocked down hybrids like Mountain Magic which carries from one parent-- the genes Ph-2 and Ph-3. I have F-3 plants of Mountain Magic in other locations and hybrids between selected F-2's of it.

I am awaiting results from Europe about some of my strains, especially from the fella that named the blight blue 13 over there.

My 2009 crop was not evaluated well since I was gone from early Sept through all of October. But I was harvesting tomatoes in November last year.

Tom Wagner

[Tania]

Tom,

I got bad late blight problem this summer - first back in early August, and 2nd time it fit me this weekend.

The only survivors are:
- Mexican Cocktail
- Coyote
- Magnum Beefsteak.

Sounds like currant/wild tomatoes have natural tolerance to late blight - you named Matt's Wild, and I am seeing it with Mexican Cocktail - it is amazing to see the green thriving plants in the field of tomato death.

It would certainly be very nice to get late blight tolerant in large-fruited varieties

We seem to have blight going through our area every 3rd year or so. It was very bad this year.

Tania

[Stepheninky]

Would grafting have any effect on resistance to blight?

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by Stepheninky

Would grafting have any effect on resistance to blight?

It would if the relevant known genes for Late Blight were included in the package of genes that are part of the most common rootstocks that I know of, such as Maxifort and Beufort, etc.,but last I looked they weren't.

And what Tom is suggesting is that even the current and latest LB genes found in, for instance, Mt. Magic and Plum Regal F1 might not be sufficient to be protective where he is b'c he's suggesting that different serotypes of LB are appearing.

The PNW has always been a hot spot for LB due to overwintering of LB in potato culll piles, the fact that the two mating types for LAB exist there which allows for sexual recombination, and both are not found in the East, as well as the cool, wet conditions that also exist there.

[travis]

Originally Posted by Tom Wagner

2008 knocked down hybrids like Mountain Magic which carries from one parent-- the genes Ph-2 and Ph-3. I have F-3 plants of Mountain Magic in other locations and hybrids between selected F-2's of it.

What was the source of Mountain Magic F1 seeds in 2008?

What was the criteria for selection of Mountain Magic F2 parents to your hybrids?

Did your hybrids using the F2 parents resist any better than the 2008 F1 plants?

Are any of your Mountain Magic F3 recombinations showing larger fruit than the F1?

What interesting or remarkable characteristics are any of the Mountain Magic F3 recombinations showing?

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by travis

What was the source of Mountain Magic F1 seeds in 2008?

What was the criteria for selection of Mountain Magic F2 parents to your hybrids?

Did your hybrids using the F2 parents resist any better than the 2008 F1 plants?

Are any of your Mountain Magic F3 recombinations showing larger fruit than the F1?

What interesting or remarkable characteristics are any of the Mountain Magic F3 recombinations showing?

I wondered about the My Magic F1 seeds in 2008 as well. I know that Randy sent Mt. Magic and Plum Regal F1 and Smarty F1 to a few of us in the Spring of 2009, which allowed me to grow them in 2009 and I had enough left over, and in my case, to allow me, with his permission, to distribute seeds of all three here at Tville this past Spring.

Perhaps Randy had sent Mt Magic to Tom in the Spring of 2008.

Tom would know, and so would Randy who reads here and sometimes posts here. And if he has the time I know Randy would be reading anything having to do with Late Blight, although I'm sure that Tom has already reported back to Randy what Tom's experience with Mt Magic F1 is/was.

[Wi-sunflower]

I just got an email from Seedway featuring Mountian Magic tomato seeds. Here is their catalog page http://www.seedway.com/vegseed_catal...?ShowProd=5473

100 seeds $29.75

Too rich for my taste but if you need it I guess you won't have much choice.

Carol

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by Wi-sunflower

I just got an email from Seedway featuring Mountian Magic tomato seeds. Here is their catalog page http://www.seedway.com/vegseed_catal...?ShowProd=5473

100 seeds $29.75

Too rich for my taste but if you need it I guess you won't have much choice.

Carol

I got the same e-mail this AM as well, but for some reason have always gotten the Seedway e-mails for years.

I don't know if it was the internet, my software or whatever but I went looking around at the site after seeing the 30 dollars for 100 seeds to see what other tomato varieties they were offering after I recognized what they call their "partners" as with Bejo and others and ASAP I lost the action of the mouse entirely, not a wireless, and it only appeared off the site at the very bottom of page. I couldn't remember the manual get me out of here strokes, so had to click on the AOL bar at the bottom and got out that way, was able to turn off the computer and get back on.

It may have been my system, but I've been using Windows XP since it came out as well as the current version of AOL for many years and nothing like that has ever happened before.

Yes, I know that I could have just temporarily depressed on the on/off button on the CPU, but preferred not to.

So if any of you go there and go beyond just looking at the Mt Magic info please let me know if you too have problems when trying to view their complete list of tomatoes.

And I will now put under lock and key my remaining MM seeds, but still looking to see if Johnny's has been offered MM and perhaps Plum Regal.

[nctomatoman]

I just looked around, no problem with their site. I did notice they have Green Zebra listed as a 5-8 ounce tomato, though!

[travis]

Originally Posted by Wi-sunflower

I just got an email from Seedway featuring Mountian Magic tomato seeds. Here is their catalog page http://www.seedway.com/vegseed_catal...?ShowProd=5473

100 seeds $29.75

Too rich for my taste but if you need it I guess you won't have much choice.

Carol

Looks like I'll be growing F2s or nothing.