Tomato Late Blight Alert

[Keiko Sono]

Hello,

This is an email I received from the Mid Hudson Mushroom Club. Bill Bakaitis is the founder of the club, mushroom expert, and the state's mushroom poisoning consultant. He sent this alert to the club, so I thought I would share it with you.

Keiko
 

Hey everyone, I was speaking with Bill Bakatis and he is advising that this great mushroom weather ( the warm winter, early spring and now copious amounts of cool rain) are precisely the conditions for Phytophthora infestans (commonly called Late Blight), the 'fungus' that caused the Irish (and other) Potato Blights and devastated the tomato crops in the northeast in 2009.  Below is some great information that Bill provided on Late Blight and some preventative measures you might weant to consider.  Big thanks go out to Bill for giving us a heads up on this. 
 
One fact source (a bit dated) is http://vegetablemdonline.ppath.cornell.edu/factsheets/Potato_LateBlt.htm
 
An organic control program is outlined at https://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/summaries/summary.php?pub=123
 
Most control programs recommend treating early, lightly, and often. Once 5% of the crop is infected it is too late. Each spore can cause a lesion which in three days will produce 100,000 to 300,000 spores per day, each spore then can cause a new infection..
 
Serenade (Bacillus subtilis) is a recommended organic preventative. A fact sheet can be found at http://www.agro.basf.com/agr/AP-Internet/en/function/conversions:/publish/upload/solutions/09_04_08_BASF-explores-the-use-of-biopesticides-in-combination-with-chemicals.pdf
 
It is widely available in most garden stores e.g. http://www.planetnatural.com/site/serenade-disease-control.html
 
Bill's wife Leslie has a good on-line summary below.
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http://leslieland.com/2009/08/managing-late-blight-organically/
and
http://leslieland.com/2009/08/blight-rust-mold-rot-slugs-snails-and-earwigs/