North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Lee Reich <lreich@hvc.rr.com>]

Alan,

Late blight does not always strike in the northeast because, except in diseased potato tubers, it does not overwinter here. It gets here via infected plants or, when weather conditions (cool and rainy) are just right for it to hopscotch here from the south, where it does overwinter. It very well could have (and probably did) get a start here on some tomato plants at big box stores, then hopscotched around from gardens to farms, etc.

Lee Reich, PhD

http://www.leereich.com/

http://leereich.blogspot.com/

Books by Lee Reich:

A Northeast Gardener's Year

The Pruning Book

Weedless Gardening

Uncommon Fruits for Every Garden

Landscaping with Fruit

On Jul 27, 2009, at 6:49 AM, Alan Haigh wrote:

Yup, the media has been abuzz about tainted tomato plants and the blight issue here in the northeast but I doubt any scientific connection exists between the big box plants (seeds?) and the early late blight this year.  There has just been an incredible amount of rain.  I would expect my late blight to be early with 2 straight months of rain in the double digits with inadequate sun between storms.

 

Of course my property has had early blight for well over a decade so I'm pretty sanguine at this point although my neighbor gardener says the latest blight is a new strain and we need to rogue out any plants showing symptoms.  I'll wait to see what happens next season to draw any conclusions.  It was a lot more fun growing tomatoes before blight arrived, I will say that. 

 

Still, I'm harvesting enough for my family and have 3 healthy plants in my unheated greenhouse to click in when the others die off.  Good thing- I wouldn't want to rely on farmers markets for tomatoes this year. 

 

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