Blight again folks

 

Hello
with regards to tomato and potato blight foliage.

I have read that all foliage should be put into the dustbin and  other
advice to put in compost heap as blight only over winters on green plant
material.

What opinions if any do you folks have.

TIA ..........................leslie



--
Posted via NewsDemon.com - Premium Uncensored Newsgroup Service
      ------->>>>>>http://www.NewsDemon.com<<<<<<------
Unlimited Access, Anonymous Accounts, Uncensored Broadband Access

 


Leslie wrote

http://www.rhs.org.uk/Advice/profiles0803/tomato_blight.asp


--
Regards
Bob Hobden

 


|> Leslie wrote
|> > with regards to tomato and potato blight foliage.
|> >
|> > I have read that all foliage should be put into the dustbin and  other
|> > advice to put in compost heap as blight only over winters on green plant
|> > material.
|> >
|> > What opinions if any do you folks have.
|>
|> http://www.rhs.org.uk/Advice/profiles0803/tomato_blight.asp

That still promotes the old wife's tale that it isn't safe to
compost blighted plants - that is quite simply wrong.  Blight in
the UK CURRENTLY overwinters only on living material (typically
potato tubers, and possibly native Solanum species).

The reason is that spores produced by a single strain do not
overwinter, and it needs a sort of sexual stage to produce ones
that do.  Currently, this has not been demonstrated to occur in
the UK.  In this, Wikipedia is more reliable than the RHS - though
I am basing my statement on academic papers.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phytophthora_infestans

Yes, it's safe to compost blighted plant material, provided that
you ensure that any potato tubers in it do not survive composting
and, to a lesser extent, the blight spores are not spread from the
material on the compost heap.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

 




That's twice we agree today!

 


"Nick Maclaren"  wrote

I would not take the chance, it's simply not worth the risk composting any
diseased plant material.

--
Regards
Bob Hobden