Can you identify late blight on tomatoes?
2009 July 30
There’s a fungus flying through the air and wiping out tomato crops throughout the Northeast called late blight. ABC News did a piece on it, and I thought I’d put up the video so you can see what to be on the lookout for. It’s not just affecting farms; it’s also affecting gardens.
We’ve been tracking <late blight through reports from home gardeners. I’m very curious as to whether late blight can be traced to certain sources or if it’s just spreading due to the perfect weather conditions.
I’m certainly no expert, but from what I’ve been reading it seems to be a combination of both. Some of the blight is being traced back to tomato plants that originated in the south and sold at I believe Walmart and Home Depot stores here in the Northeast. Then our rainy, cold June and damp still not very hot July helped to spread the late blight which didn’t show up so late this year. I’ve read that a good 10 hot, dry days in a row in August could help stop the spread, but August certainly didn’t start out dry here in Jersey, did it?
Again, I’m not an expert – this is just based on things I’ve read.