Tomato blight now found in Wisconsin potato fields
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A notorious plant disease that destroyed the Irish potato crop decades ago has been found in two commercial potato fields in Wisconsin.
The fungus, called late blight, has been confirmed in potato fields in Columbia and Portage counties, and that’s raising concerns among state agriculture experts.
They are recommending that home gardeners destroy any tomato plants that show signs of the late blight. Late blight often starts in a plant’s leaves, causing brown, spreading lesions to appear before attacking the rest of the plant.
Plant pathologist Amanda Gevens of the University of Wisconsin-Madison says it’s a community problem because each infected plant puts more spores into the air, which threatens to infect more plants.
Aug 22, 2009 at 12:45 p.m.
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Sysco...the potatos are picked and planted by machinery so I guess I'm not realy sure what you are supposed to be implying with your comment. A large part are grown near the Adams freindship area. One large farm up there is named heartland farms and employs all locals.
Aug 21, 2009 at 7:17 a.m.
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Thanks badger boy!
Aug 20, 2009 at 10:55 p.m.
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very scary situation, at least three local potato chip manufacturers depend heavily on locally grown crop to produce their products.
Aug 20, 2009 at 9:02 p.m.
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good article badgerboy thanx
Aug 20, 2009 at 8:54 p.m.
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keeps his fingers crossed that it doesn't spread too much to the potato plants in central Wisconsin. If this wipes out the potatoes you will pay more for a lot of food items such as , potatoes, potato flakes (instant potatoes) potato chips,Tater Tots,French Fries and a lot of other food items that have potatoes in them. Think of how many uses potatoes have. This could be very bad for the state.
Aug 20, 2009 at 8:46 p.m.
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Cornell University has a link describing late blight as it relates to tomatoes and potatoes.
http://vegetablemdonline.ppath.cornell.e...
Aug 20, 2009 at 8:40 p.m.
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How are you supposed to destroy the plant without spreading the spores? How do we know if that is what is causing the leaves to brown? Can't we just spray a fungicide?
Aug 20, 2009 at 8:21 p.m.
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you are not going to explain the link between potatos and tomatoes?
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