If you grew your own plants from seed or got them from a purely local grower-who didn't mix their stock with bulk-purchased plants-your only risk is the spores blowing into your garden. Infected plants were found at almost every store that was checked, so be especially vigilant if you or a neighbor got plants from such a store. According to their story of July 3rd, the disease appears to have originated in tomato plants shipped to 'Big Box' stores on the east Coast-specifically Lowe's, Home Depot, Wal-Mart, and Kmart. The Associated Press has done an excellent job of reporting on this potential crisis. Oh and just to make SURE you don't sleep well tonight, this is the earliest and most widespread it's ever appeared. And the cool, damp weather that plagued the affected parts of the country throughout much of June provided the 'perfect' conditions for this nasty actor to spread rapidly.
If people don't promptly remove and destroy infected plants the spores will travel with the wind to the next garden-or farm. Same with potatoes.Īnd late blight spreads like wildfire on a windy day in bone-dry weather. Late blight affects the fruit as well as the foliage, and almost always causes rapid death of the entire plant. A lot of the diseases that affect tomatoes only cause some discoloration of leaves and a corresponding loss in solar powered photosynthesis.
Like all plant diseases, late blight doesn't directly affect humans or other non-plant organisms, but it is deadly to the plants it infects. The disease is equally deadly to tomatoes. Late Blight is the same pathogen that caused the Irish Potato Famine. Meg McGrath (no relation) was exaggerating the seriousness of the problem in news releases from Cornell University, but nothing could be further from the truth. Persons not familiar with disease issues may have felt that plant pathologist Dr. Serious bad news warning: As of early July 2009, Late Blight, perhaps the most devastating disease of food plants, appears to be widespread in tomato and potato plants in all six New England states and New York with additional cases confirmed in virtually every other East Coast state, Ohio and West Virginia.
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