Quote:
Originally Posted by RayR
Of course Carolyn is right, Fusarium is extremely rare in NYS. The only real Fusarium infections I've read about were in some soybean fields in a few counties in central New York. So you have to wonder how Fusarium got there in the first place since it's an organism that's not native to the North and can't survives really cold winters.
It's far more likely to get Verticillium Wilt in the North than Fusarium.
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It's unusual, but I wouldn't say "extremely rare". I suspect it's underreported in tomatoes because tomatoes aren't an important commercial crop in NY State.
Fusarium is actually more common than vert in some areas, such as Long Island.
Upstate I'm sure it's much rarer, but if the soil is sandy, the chances increase.
Fusarium can survive freezing temperatures. They find it alive in the arctic. And it can survive in soil for 30 years or more.
The thing that keeps it from being a problem up north is that we rarely get enough days with warm enough soil to produce disease in tomatoes, but this is changing. I suspect we will not be able to remain complacent about fusarium much longer.
Quote:
Originally Posted by RayR
And this RKN thing. Root Knot Nematodes are root feeding nematodes but there are many many species of root feeding nematodes that are not RKN's. RKN's are species in the genus Meloidogyne, They are not adapted to Northern climates with long frigid winters. They thrive in very hot climates down South. If they were to show up in the North at all they would have to have been imported from the South in contaminated soil.
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Meloidogyne hapla is a RKN species that survives deep freezes. That's why it's called Northern Root Knot Nematode. And, yes, tomato is a host. It's all over the north. It tends to do less damage than Southern RKNs, but if you also have a soilborne disease organism in your soil, obviously, it's going to be a problem.
Plants that are resistant to southern RKN will not be resistant to northern RKN, so the best way to deal with it is to select resistance for whatever soil disease you have. The northern RKN on its own won't do quite as much damage (
yield loss is typically about half the yield loss from comparable conditions with southern RKN).