This reviled disease is caused by the pathogen Phytophthora infestans. I recommend growing your tomatoes or potatoes somewhere else the following year in case some pathogens have stuck around.Īnother common garden blight is late blight, which got its claim to fame as the cause of the Irish potato famine. Disinfect garden shears with a bleach-soaked rag after pruning a plant with early blight symptoms.Īt the end of the season, destroy all the plant material in the vicinity of the infection and replace the soil as much as possible. Only a (well-disinfected!!) pair of garden shears will help you with that. Apply this product only before a period of wet weather is expected to set in, when the risk is at its highest.ĭon’t bother trying to use it to cure plants that show signs of early blight. Fungicides are a preventative treatment, not a cure. Since splashes of water containing the pathogen are a primary way the disease spreads, the next thing you’ll want to do is cover the soil with fresh compost to keep the pathogens from splashing up again.įinally, pick up an appropriate fungicide from our garden centre in Edmonton. Prune and stake the branches of your tomato or potato plants to promote plenty of airflow, which can slow the disease down.
Remove all parts of the plant that appear affected and burn it or toss it in the garbage- the compost is the last place you want those pathogens to end up. Once you’ve been hit with early blight, it’s in your best interest to do anything you can to slow the spread. Wet conditions and high temperatures, like the ones we’ve been having lately in Edmonton, are major risk factors for the spread of early blight. The pathogen will also hide in the soil, transmitting easily to other plants. The disease will gradually spread to the whole leaf and progressively affect the whole plant. When affected by early blight, tomato plants and potato plants will first show brown spots on the leaves that form a distinctive “bullseye” pattern. Tomato and potato plants are the most common plants to show symptoms of early blight. The disease overwinters through our harsh Alberta winters and causes mayhem in affected vegetable gardens. There are a handful of common diseases known as “blights”, due to blight as the main symptom, that we commonly see in Edmonton gardens.Įarly blight is a disease caused by the fungal pathogen Alternaria solani. This leads to the tissue turning brown and dying off. By definition, blight itself is the progression of chlorosis, which is the condition of plant tissue that isn’t producing enough chlorophyll. My poor tomato plant had fallen victim to blight.īlight is actually a symptom of many diseases and not a disease of its own. As I went to greet the day’s harvest, I discovered that one of my plants was not looking so hot. This system was working out really well for me until a nasty surprise caught me off-guard the other day.
Every day, I have more perfectly red tomatoes begging to be plucked off the plant and plunked into a salad. We’re officially in the dog days of summer, and all the labour I’ve been pouring into my tomato plants is paying off.
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