LOCAL LATE BLIGHT FIGHT!

Aaaacckkkk!

Despite a prophylactic spraying of fungicide last week, it looks like late blight has shown up in our home garden. Yes, gentle foodie readers, prophylactic is a legitimate agricultural term defining a "preventative" (or preemptive, if you will) measure. Scouting last week had not shown any signs of late blight on the tomatoes and they were sprayed with a fungicide containing chlorothalonil as recommended by Penn State Cooperative Extension, Cornell, & UMass. Obviously, something had already started although we didn't see it. I'm sure that the rain since then helped to keep conditions favorable for movement & proliferation of spores. Take a look at this picture of what was found when I went out to spray again tonight. Note the grayish spot in the bottom center of the photo above. It doesn't look like much when you're looking over a couple of dozen bushy & lush tomato plants, but it was lurking in there in the bottom close-up photo.
Two plants were carefully removed piece by piece & sealed in a black plastic garbage bag.

All of the plants were sprayed again, so we'll see what happens. We bring this topic up because all of the farmers growing tomatoes for market are having to deal with this potentially devastating crop problem. They are scouting the fields looking for this disease daily. The organic growers have a more limited range of options open to them to prevent the spread of late blight. Affected plant material can't just be thrown on the compost heap either, so this is a difficult problem. Let's see how everyone fares for the rest of the season. Our local paper already ran a story on a home garden wiped out by late blight ......