Resistance and tolerance are relative terms. One variety may be better at withstanding exposure to a particular disease than another most of the time, but may still succumb to the pest under adverse environmental conditions. Sometimes there are races of the disease in nature for which there are no resistances available, but some varieties may be available with resistance to the more common races. Also, some varieties may have resistance to more races of a disease than other varieties.

Herein is a list of a few commercial varieties that usually perform “better than average” under southern New England or Northeastern conditions. In other words, they show some degree of resistance (fair-excellent) and yield well whether or not they are exposed to a disease.

Of course, an IPM approach utilizing multiple techniques (sanitation, cultural control, resistance, chemicals) will almost always produce better results than relying on one or two control techniques. Utilize resistant varieties where feasibile on the farm, but take some time to research the disease(s) that is/are giving the most trouble to find other controls to plug into the management plan.