State officials warn of infected tomatoes
7:43 p.m.
Toolbox
By TOM MITCHELL
Staff Writer - Published: July 2, 2009
State agriculture officials are alerting gardeners and farmers that tomato plants with the disease "late blight" have been found and removed this week from a dozen retail outlets along the Route 7 corridor.
A potential contamination threat to local commercial crops, the infected plants were distributed recently from a single shipment mostly to four big box stores, where hundreds of plants have been removed and destroyed, officials said.
"There were a number of (infected) tomato plants that were shipped into Vermont sometime last week, (and) there were plants that had late blight," Tim Schmalz, plant pathologist in the Agency of Agriculture, said Thursday.
Some plants with the fungus were removed from three big-box outlets in Rutland, including a store on Route 4, a second store at the Rutland Shopping Plaza, and a third in the Diamond Run Mall, state agriculture officials said.
Diseased plants were also found and removed at three big-box stores in Bennington and other big-box retail stores in Williston, South Burlington and Berlin, officials said. There were also a couple of independent stores in Pownal and Essex that had the infected plants, they said.
Part of the concern is that some homeowners may have already purchased plants infected by the fungus or others that were exposed to it that they may have taken home to plant in their gardens, Schmalz said.
People are being asked to check their tomato plants to see if they might have the fungus on them, and destroy the plants if they do, he said. Spores on infected plants could spread on the wind to commercial fields, according to Vern Grubinger, vegetable and berry specialist with the University of Vermont Extension Service.
"This is shaping up to be one of the worst years for late blight, the fungal disease made famous as the cause of the Irish potato famine of the mid-1800s," Grubinger said.
That's because the fungus has appeared early because of the rainy, humid weather, Grubinger said.
Infected leaves have spots as big as a nickel that appear water soaked, beginning at leaf tips and edges, Grubinger said. The edges of diseased plants will be covered with white fungus growth that contain the spores that can spread the fungus when carried by wind, he said.
Grubinger has begun warning commercial and organic vegetable growers, who face the loss of their crops if they don't spray to contain the fungus. The fungus could also threaten potato plants, he said.
By midweek, Schmalz, who gathered samples of infected plants from a big-box store in Williston, had put all exposed plants on "stop sale," meaning that the plants at the various locations were removed from the stores and destroyed.
This was the last shipment of tomatoes for the season from this distributor so there should be no more infected plants coming in, at least through this particular access point.
"We are asking home gardeners to keep an eye on their tomato plants, (and particularly) if they know they have plants where the disease was established and watch them," he said. "It is beautiful weather to be a plant pathogen."
There have been widespread reports of the fungus in New York state, Grubinger said. So far, the distributor doesn't believe the fungus broke out at any of their growing facilities, Schmalz said.
Infestations were so widespread through New York and New Jersey that Schmalz said he finds it hard to believe that the one or two trucks carrying the shipment with infected plants picked up the fungus enroute to Vermont, he said.
Vermont home gardeners and or commercial growers within a few miles of New York state could be at risk for exposure to spores carried on the wind from infected areas in that neighboring state, Schmalz said.
In cases where there are too many plants for gardeners and farmers to destroy, the plants can be rototilled into the garden or farm field where they'll decompose, Grubinger said.
tom.mitchell@rutlandherald.com
13