2009 Blight Decimated Tomato Plants Province Wide
 

I was just wondering, since our province, at least in south-western Ontario - whether you lived in an urban or rural area, whether you were a home or commercial gardener, whether you had a 10' x 10' plot, or 1000 acres - had our Tomato crops decimated by Blight ....

are there any precautions I need to take for this season's garden?

Is the soil contaminated? How can I guard against things being transferred from last year's garden?

Thanks for any knowledge and/or advice.

Kim

I don't know if the soil is contaminated, but I'm hoping that I may have been able to avoid that, with the vast majority of my "soil mix" sitting in covered rubbermaid garbage/rubbish cans for close to a year now. Since I didn't grow at home, almost none of the soil mix was exposed to the Blight.

So I would be curious to know if that may or may not be an advantage for next year. Or are the flower beds contaminated and will they therefore contaminate anything I put in pots/containers this year?

Mother Nature took care of your Late Blight problem when freezing weather arrived. Late Blight cannot survive freezing.

Your soil is not contaminated. Late Blight needs to have living tomato or potato plants to survive. It doesn't live in the soil and it can't come back from the soil next year unless there are infected potato tubers there that won't get frozen. Freezing the potato tubers kills the tubers and the Late Blight that is on them.

Any Late Blight that shows up next year will be carried in to your garden on the wind as tiny spores from somewhere else, most likely from someone else's infected potatoes or, as happened in 2009, from infected tomato seedlings shipped in from a warmer climate. It won't come from your soil. :)

Here are a couple of FAQ's that may be helpful:

[url]http://northeastipm.org/newsandreports/2009fall/Fall09_LateBlight.html[/url]

See question #18 here: [url]http://www.hort.cornell.edu/department/Facilities/lihrec/vegpath/lbfaq.pdf[/url]

Awesome bcday ... thanks for setting my mind at ease. Now I can relax - until it's time to start the seedlings, anyway.:)

I was wondering about this too, and it has put my mind to rest, thanks.

Please be aware that what I said above only applies to LATE Blight, not Early Blight.

I know you probably know the difference, but many folks don't understand that Late Blight is a whole different disease from Early Blight. That's why it's so important to pin down the exact name of whatever disease your plants have.

Late Blight (Phytophthora infestans) CANNOT survive the winter on dead plants, or in the soil.

Early Blight (Alternaria solani) CAN survive the winter on dead plant material. So can Septoria, another serious foliage disease.

Clearing dead plants away from the garden at the end of the season and cleaning stakes, cages and other equipment won't make any difference to Late Blight, but it will help a lot to reduce re-infection by Early Blight and Septoria next year.

Late Blight can show up "early" in the season, as it did in 2009. And if you take preventative measures, it's possible that Early Blight may not appear until "late" in the season. So you can't distinguish Early Blight from Late Blight by whether it shows up early or late, LOL.

A little *bump* as I was worried my volunteer tomato plants would be carrying blight that nice little FAQ says the seeds can't carry LB through the winter. My spouse will be so happy.

(And now I have to weed out some of the 50 volunteers lol)

Danwigz