The most common early symptoms on tomato transplants are brown lesions on stems, with white fungal growth developing under moist conditions. Keeping the disease in check requires attention and vigilance from gardeners and farmers alike. Since then, it has continued to appear throughout New England in farm fields and home gardens, but fortunately it has not caused losses at the same level. In 2009 a widespread outbreak affected both home gardens and commercial farms on a broad scale, causing significant yield losses in both tomato and potato. It has been in the US for over a century, but it has become more of a concern in the Northeast in recent years. Late blight is the same disease that caused the Irish Potato Famine in the 1840s. All tomato and potato plants grown in home gardens and in commercial fields are susceptible to late blight! Given the right conditions, the spores are easily carried for miles in wind currents to infect susceptible plants in even the most remote parts in our region. Because the disease can move very easily from one garden or field to others, it is critical that both home gardeners and farmers know how the disease works, what to look for, and how to manage it. ![]() If so, apply it at fruit set, or just before, and reapply every 7 to 14 days, avoid harvesting your tomatoes within 7 days of application.Īlways follow the manufacturer’s recommendations when you use chemical treatments.Home gardeners should be aware of Late Blight caused by Phytophthora infestans – a very destructive and very infectious disease that kills tomato and potato plants in gardens and on commercial farms across the U.S. You may want to apply fungicide as a preventative measure. In other words, if a fungicide targets one specific aspect of the organism’s metabolism, resistance develops much more quickly than if the chemical targets a number of different biochemical processes at the same time. You need to find a fungicide that acts on multiple targets in the fungus at the same time, so resistance is less likely to develop. FungicidesĪ variety of fungicides are effective against early blight, but the fungi that cause this infection are becoming resistant in some areas. See our guide to learn more about controlling plant pathogens with Bacillus subtilis. While the copper fungicide dust will kill existing infections, CEASE decreases the likelihood that any remaining fungi will spread throughout your crop. This is a strain of the bacterium Bacillus subtilis that can help prevent the infection from spreading. Using drip irrigation instead of watering from overhead will help to keep your plants dry.Īnother option is the biofungicide CEASE, available from Arbico Organics. Try to avoid working with or around your plants in wet weather. In the presence of spores, this can help to prevent a fungal infection from getting worse. Take every precaution you can to minimize the amount of moisture on your tomato plants. Tomato plants are used to growing in dry climates, so they are unusually sensitive to water on their leaves, which makes them more prone to fungal infections than many other crops. The Alternaria spores require a lot of moisture to germinate. When you remove the weeds and volunteer plants, make sure you destroy them – do not place on your compost pile. This is true for edible crops such as potatoes, as well as hairy nightshade, black nightshade, and horse nettle, so be vigilant and keep these weeds out of your garden. These can pass the infection on to your tomato plants. Plants in the same family as tomatoes (solanaceous plants, or nightshades), and volunteer tomato plants can also serve as hosts for Alternaria species. Purge Nightshades and Volunteer Tomato Plants This applies to any crops in the nightshade family as well, such as eggplant, which can also be infected by the fungus. This is true even if you didn’t see any symptoms of early blight, since the pathogen can start building up without your knowledge. ![]() ![]() Wait at least two years before planting in the same location again, since the spores can persist in the soil and any partially decomposed plants for a year to follow. However, if tomatoes are the crop in question, restrain yourself! You increase the chance of developing an early blight infection if you grow tomato plants in the same place in consecutive years. When you harvest a bumper crop one year, it is so tempting to plant in the same spot the following season. These are the most effective ways to prevent it from taking hold in your garden: Rotate Your Crops Photo by Dwight Sipler, Wikimedia Commons, via CC BY-SA.
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