Late blight now confirmed on tomato and potato in Mifflin Co., PA

[ca1ore]

Spotted some suspiscious brown blotches today. Sent them off the the CT plant disease lab for testing. After all the precautions I take, man, will I be a grumpy lad if I have to destroy all my tomato plants. Grew 'em all from seed this year except for a Black Krim that I could not resist from a local nursery.

[rsg2001]

The farm that runs the CSA from which we get organic vegetables, located in Riverhead, Long Island (NY), reported this week that late blight "has been found in multiple gardens and a few farms in our area" -- they have scouted closely and so far have not found it on their farm. This far is around an hour and a half's drive from us, but that is a disturbing report.

[lakelady]

Its too early to deal with LB, I haven't gotten any tomatoes to eat yet!!

Ah, the septoria is already working on taking down one of my Legend plants, I've sprayed but couldn't really get the interior of the plant very well it was too dense. ugh

[Tania]

Originally Posted by lakelady

Its too early to deal with LB, I haven't gotten any tomatoes to eat yet!!

I second that. This is exactly what happened to most of my tomatoes last year - they died from late blight before producing fruits. This started happening on July 7, the earliest I've even seen it here.

I hope this does not happen so early for all of us.

[Tania]

Another LB resource useful for Michigan area: http://www.lateblight.org/neuroweather.php

[Tania]

And this: https://twitter.com/#!/late_blight

[PA_Julia]

Just continue to be proactive and spray your plants weekly.


Julia

[ca1ore]

Results back from CT plant lab were encouraging - no fungus of any kind. Leaf lesions did look like LB though ...... so far, no more confirmed reports in my area.

[MRITOMA]

Three of the plants that came from the nursery got it. I was in the same place last week and noticed the whole tomato display was sick. I mentioned that the ones i got there had to trashed. I told him that he needed to ged rid of them so it dose not spread.
Seems the the potato leafs are the weaker ones. Those were stared from seed and out of 10 plants half survived.
I promised myself this year to have extra plants to sub and to yank anything that performs badly.

[lakelady]

I've seen lots of pics of advanced stages, but what do the early stages of LB look like? What should we be looking for? I have some odd darkening on a few plants in a row at the tops of the plants that have me concerned.

[kath]

Originally Posted by lakelady

I've seen lots of pics of advanced stages, but what do the early stages of LB look like? What should we be looking for? I have some odd darkening on a few plants in a row at the tops of the plants that have me concerned.

Watch for dark areas on stems and leaves- just smaller than the ones seen in the advanced stage pics. The spots look grayish and greasy. On the underside of leaf spots it looks fuzzy. It can start anywhere on the plant, but usually from the middle on up.

[Tania]

Originally Posted by lakelady

I've seen lots of pics of advanced stages, but what do the early stages of LB look like? What should we be looking for? I have some odd darkening on a few plants in a row at the tops of the plants that have me concerned.

Here is a picture of a very early stage of LB - I had to pull this plant on July 5. Thank God the rains stopped, so it did not spread!!!

[janezee]

Oh, Tania, good move!

I have had late blight every year that I've grown tomatoes here but one. That's because I grew in pots in the asphalt driveway. I didn't know it could start this early!

I hope that's all you see of late blight this year!

j

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by lakelady

I've seen lots of pics of advanced stages, but what do the early stages of LB look like? What should we be looking for? I have some odd darkening on a few plants in a row at the tops of the plants that have me concerned.

I'm going to type out the sequence of development for LB that appears in my Seminis tomato pathology book b'c Seminis is the world's best place/lab, for tomato diseases and it's their photos that you see at TAMU and some other places.

So here we go.

****

The first symptom of the disease is the bending down of the petioles of infected leaves.Leaf and stem lesions are large, irregular, greenish, water soaked patches. These patches enlarge and turn brown and paper-like. During wet weather the underside of the leaves may have a white sporulating fungal growth. A rapid blighting of the foliage may occur during warm, moist periods. Entire fields can have extensive foliar and fruit damage.. Fruit lesions are firm, large, irregular, brownish- green blotches. The surface of the fruit has a greasy rough appearance.)

The next section is titled Conditions for Disease Development and the last section is titled Control.

The pictures shown are:

Burnt foliar appearanace in the Field
Fluffy White Sporulation on the Leaf
Large Necrotic Stem Lesions
Necrotic Expanding Leaf Lesions
Rough Brown Fruit Lesions

....... and please remember that Gray Mold disease looks almost like LB and is often confused with LB.

Hope that helps.

[lakelady]

thank you Tania and Carolyn! I was kind of hoping if it hits here that I'd recognize it long before it gets to the advanced stages and infects everything.