They may still catch it and even suffer, especially in unfavorable conditions or when the disease is strong.īut which diseases should you look out for to protect your tomato plants and crops? True, you need to know which tomato diseases are typical of your area. IR – Intermediate Resistance, this means that the tomato variety is stronger than non resistant varieties, but not fully resistant against the given disease.HR – High Resistance, this means that the tomato variety is very strong against the given disease it is unlikely to catch it and to suffer severely from it.Some are very serious, others are less serious.Īnyway, these disease can be grouped into big categories: They can affect roots, stem, leaves, flowers or fruits.īasically there are ailments for each part of your tomato plants. We said that there are in all 63 known diseases that can affect your tomatoes. We will only give you hybrids and cultivars produced naturally, through the toil and experience of farmers, growers, gardeners and botanists.īut what types of disease can your tomato vines catch? Types of Tomato Diseases GMOs are a massive ethical and environmental issue and an economic one as well. There are some GMO tomatoes that are disease resistant, but we will not be presenting them here. It means changing the DNA of plants directly, with bits of DNA imported from outside. GMO technology is not just breeding or hybridization. You select these, and not the ones that catch it, and you get a new variety which is resistant like one of the parent varieties.Īll very scientific, isn’t it? But how about GMOs? Disease Resistant Varieties and GMOs If you cross them with a non resistant variety, some of the offspring will have the right genes to be resistant. Some varieties can be resistant to some diseases naturally. Hybridization is when we mix two varieties of tomatoes. You have “isolated” the ones hat are resistant to this disease. You grow the ones that don’t… and so on for a few generations, till you see that your tomatoes just don’t catch blight. They catch blight too, but less than before. What does it mean? It may mean that they have the ability to fight it off in their genes. Most of them get sick, many die…īut you notice that some plants don’t get it!… Imagine you have a filed of San Marzano tomatoes and they catch blight. We say selection when we choose to reproduce (seed and grow) tomatoes with a specific quality. But what does it mean, in detail? There are basically two ways to go about it: selection and hybridization. This makes them less capable to fight off certain diseases…īut… if you risk getting your tomatoes more susceptible to diseases if you select the, for example, for their fruit size, you can also select them for their resistance to diseases… How Are Disease Resistant Tomatoes Developed?ĭisease resistant tomatoes are bred to be such. When you select a variety, you limit its genetic potential, choosing all plants that are very similar. Tomato varieties have been bred and selected for centuries.Intensive farming and gardening is a major cause in the weakening of plants and in the degradation of the soil. Maybe the biggest cause of tomato diseases is the way they are grown. Heat and water are perfect environments for pathogens like bacteria and fungi. Then the tomato fruits are super juicy and often have a very thin and delicate peel. When plants grow fast, like tomatoes do, they can be more easily attacked by pathogens, like molds, viruses etc. Tomatoes have a very vigorous growth and juicy fruits.Like all plants, when they grow away from their natural habitat they become more vulnerable to diseases. Tomatoes do not come from temperate regions, but from South America.
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