- Disease-resistant vegetables increase your chances of growing a successful garden.Basket of Garden Vegetables image by Karin Lau from Fotolia.com
Planting disease-resistant vegetable varieties increases your chances of growing a successful garden; however, under favorable environmental conditions diseases attack even the most resistant varieties. For the best possible results, combine disease-resistant varieties with good cultural practices and sanitation. Garden sanitation includes picking up fallen leaves and plant litter and removing plants as soon as they quit producing. Avoid overcrowding to allow air circulation, and plant vegetables in full sun. A combined approach to disease prevention results in healthy, productive plants. - Three major problems with tomatoes are verticillium wilt, fusarium wilt and root-knot nematodes.green tomato image by VisualEyez from Fotolia.com
Three major problems with tomatoes are verticillium wilt, fusarium wilt and root-knot nematodes. Tomatoes that resist these disease are sometimes labeled as VFN varieties. Large-fruiting, main crop, VFN tomatoes include Park's whopper improved, better boy, lemon boy, enchantment, celebrity, miracle sweet, Abraham Lincoln improved, beefmaster and Burpee supersteak. Sweet Chelsea and small fry are small-fruiting, disease-resistant varieties.
Unfortunately, open-pollinated heirloom varieties have little or no disease resistance. Grow heirloom tomatoes in an area where tomatoes have not grown for several years to reduce the chance of disease. - Heirloom varieties like scarlet runner aren't resistant to diseases.runner bean plant 4 image by chrisharvey from Fotolia.com
Bean mosaic disease causes yellowing plants that produce few pods. The only control is to plant resistant varieties. Blue lake 274 is a bush bean that resists bean mosaic virus, and blue lake is a resistant pole variety. Teseo, gold mine and slender wax resist white molds. - There are several shell pea varieties that are resistant to a variety of diseases. Green arrow resists wilt, pea leaf roll virus and powdery mildew. Maestro, top pod and knight resist all pea diseases except pea leaf roll virus. Novella II resists wilt, bean yellow mosaic virus and powdery mildew. Oregon Trail resists wilt, mosaic virus and powdery mildew.
Resistant snap varieties include cascadia, which resists mosaic virus and powdery mildew, and super sugar snap, which resists pea leaf roll virus and powdery mildew. Oregon giant and Oregon sugar pod II are snow peas that resist wilt, bean yellow mosaic virus, and powdery mildew. (Reference 4) - Slicing cucumbers that resist a variety of diseases include Ashley, poinsett and Dasher II. Ashley resists powdery and downy mildews. Poinsett resists downy and powdery mildews, anthracnose, angular leaf spot and scab. Dasher II resists powdery mildew, anthracnose, scab, angular leaf spot and cucumber mosaic virus.
Pickling cucumbers that resist diseases include Ohio MR-17, which resists mosaic virus, and Wisconsin SMR-18, which resists scab disease. Regal resists a variety of diseases, including angular leaf spot, anthracnose, downy mildew, powdery mildew, scab and cucumber mosaic virus. - Several watermelon varieties resist fusarium wilt and anthracnose, including Charleston gray, crimson sweet, Jubilee II, starbrite and tiger baby.
- Mission cantaloupe resists downy and powdery mildews. Cordele resists fusarium wilt and powdery mildew. Earlidew resists fusarium wilt.
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