Check Tomatoes Every Day For Signs Of Late Blight Infection

If you haven’t already heard about it, there is a very serious fungal disease currently affecting many tomato plants, especially on the East Coast.  The disease is called Late Blight, a strain of fungus that was responsible for the Great Potato Famine in Ireland.  While minor late blight outbreaks are often seen in late August or September, this early outbreak is spreading at explosive rates and is affecting home gardeners as well as wholesale growers.

The current outbreak was first seen on tomato plants in several big box stores on the East Coast in late June.  The infected plants were traced back to a grower, Bonnie Plants, which has commercial greenhouses located across the country.  Bonnie Plants also happens to be the number one supplier of vegetable plants to stores such as Home Depot, Lowes and Wal-Mart.  Even though the remaining infected plants were destroyed, many were still sold to unwitting consumers.  And so the late blight infection began.

I first learned about late blight from a blog post in early July on Joene’s Garden.  According to the post, scientists at the University of Cornell were among the first to spread the word about late blight.  What appears to be most alarming is how quickly the infection is spreading.  Farmers in some states are plowing under fields of tomatoes rather than risk spreading the disease.  The wholesale price of locally grown tomatoes is expected to possibly double in the coming weeks.

So what does all this mean to a home gardener who is growing a few tomato vines?  It means you must be diligent and check your tomatoes for signs of late blight every day.  There is a link to some excellent photos of tomato plants with varying stages of late blight infection on the Cornell website.   You can find information about prevention and control of late blight here.  You can also find an informative FAQ on late blight here.

According to a recent article in the NY Times about late blight, experts recommend that if you find a plant in your garden that is infected, the best thing to do is pull out the plant and put it in a sealed bag.  Do NOT compost the infected plant.  Just one infected lesion on a plant can produce thousands of spores which can travel through the air and infect other plants.

Can’t help wondering how such a vast number of infected plants made it past inspectors at the wholesale level and also were allowed to sit on the shelves at the big box stores?  Me either.  I’ve been following a blog called the Blogging Nurseryman by Trey Pitsenberg to get answers to some of my questions.  Trey is the owner of an independent garden center in CA and has been talking about the late blight story from a different perspective than many other blogs.  He has some intriguing insight into the world of growers and the lengths they need to go to in order to survive. And he is also on top of what this year’s late blight infection may mean for home gardeners in the coming years.

If you feel like you still need more information about late blight, follow this link to a webinar for home gardeners presented by Rutgers University and the Cornell Cooperative Extension.

Here in Connecticut, as in many other areas of the country, it has been a long, cold, rainy June.  While all the rain has certainly had many positive effects on our gardens it has also brought with it a whole range of insect and fungal diseases which are attacking many edible gardens.

I read a very interesting and informative post by Joene Hendry, a master gardener located right here in Connecticut.  In it, Joene talks about tomato late blight disease and how it was found recently on tomato plants for sale at some of the regional big box nurseries.  It may not sound like a big deal at first but after reading Joene’s post, you’ll understand why the scientists at Cornell University College of Agriculture and Life Sciences are taking it so seriously.

House Calls For Healthy Veggies

The other part of Joene’s post that fascinated me was the mention of Cornell’s Vegetable MD site.  The site is full of all sorts of information about growing healthy vegetables.  You can search by vegetable type and even see photos of what the symptoms of various diseases will look like on your plants. 

 I find the photos especially helpful since it can be difficult to simply read about disease manifestations on other sites and then try to apply that to your real life situation.  So instead of reading ‘veining on leaves will appear bright yellow’, here you can see an up-close photo of what the yellow veining looks like.

And while it may be a little late for this growing season, there is also a list of disease resistant vegetable varieties that thrive in the northeast.  Starting out with the right variety of vegetables can go along way toward a successful growing season.  So if the recent weather issues have you worried about you veggies, check out the Vegetable MD site to make sure your harvest is bountiful and delicious in the coming months.