Having lost sixteen beautiful tomato plants to Phytophtora Infestans, or Late Blight, I must say that I'm more than a little annoyed.

I'm also bound and determined to avoid it next summer - if at all possible.

Any advice on how to wage my personal battle would be greatly appreciated.


Here's my plan so far.

1. Buy clearly labelled plants from reputable sources. (For that, I'll probably have to order seeds from the UK and start my own. In this part of Belgium, tomato plants aren't labelled in any detail whatsoever.)

2. Plant the tomatoes in a "clean" bed.

3. If the weather does turn cool and rainy like it did at the beginning of July, enclose the plants in a plastic cloche.

4. Begin prophylactic treatment with anti-fungals at the onset of cool, damp weather. (UK garden centers sell two products that are supposed to be effective against p. infestans if used early enough: maconozeb and copper.)

5. Cross my fingers.

Additionally, can anyone recommend specific web sites that explain p. infestans in terminology that a layperson can understand? (Royal Horticulural Society - www.rhs.org.uk -is okay, but not as detailed as I'd like.) I'm getting alot of hits, but they're usually pretty technical.


I guess what I really want to know is if my tomatoes were doomed the moment the temps dropped and the rain started....

Thanks in advance.