Community | July 15, 2009 | 13 comments

Potato famine disease striking home gardens in U.S.

source: http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSTRE56963J20090711

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islek
Late blight, which caused the Irish Potato Famine of the 1840s and 1850s, is killing potato and tomato plants in home gardens from Maine to Ohio and threatening commercial and organic farms, U.S. plant scientists said on Friday.

"Late blight has never occurred this early and this widespread in the United States," said Meg McGrath, a plant pathologist at Cornell University's extension center in Riverhead, New York.

She said the fungal disease, spread by spores carried in the air, has made its way into the garden centers of large retail chains in the Northeastern United States.

"Wal-mart, Home Depot, Sears, Kmart and Lowe's are some of the stores the plants have been seen in," McGrath said in a telephone interview.

The disease, known officially as Phytophthora infestans, causes large mold-ringed olive-green or brown spots on plant leaves, blackened stems, and can quickly wipe out weeks of tender care in a home garden.

McGrath said in her 21 years of research, she has only seen five outbreaks in the United States. The destructive disease can spread rapidly in cooler, moist weather, infecting an entire field within days.

(Full article at link)
  1. groups:
    Community,   Sustainable Agriculture,   FOODIES: UNITE,   Garden
  2. tags:
    News,  United States,  Agriculture,  Disease,  12 more
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13 comments // Potato famine disease striking home gardens in U.S.

  • bombastinator
    • 0
      bombastinator  
    • Image

    • wikipedia has a good description of it.

      Apparently if you've got it already the only thing you can do is pull and destroy the crop, but if you don;t yet but are in danger there are preventative fungicides that can be used.

    • 2 years ago
  • couldntfindausername
  • couldntfindausername
    • 0
      couldntfindausername  

    • "she has only seen five outbreaks in the United States"

      Wow, we get blight warnings with the daily weather.

      This should, as pointed out above, be getting much more coverage - any disease not dealt with regularly drifts to the back of the collective mind and people don't work at preventing it and are worse at dealing with it when it strikes. When food supplies are at risk this compounds the seriousness of the problem.

      But that's not going to happen. Looking at the 'news' page on current the top five stories are: 1) Possibly kosher chewing gum, 2) Some people having sex, 3) A prodigal tourist, 4) An incompetent pasty faced terrorist and 5) A partially feral woman behaving rudely.

      And that's the *proper* news section, unless my Current is broken.

    • 2 years ago
  • kennymotown
  • KI4CLZ
  • couldntfindausername
  • Leonidis
  • Incredulous
  • chardly
    • 0
      chardly  

    • This is interesting because we have so many "monsantos" running amok. Spores are tricky little buggers...as are most airborne pathogens. When GModified c o r n was first planted it was about 4 years until the world realised that the Gmodified strains had altered almost all of the c o r n worldwide. ( c o r n is corn with my Current font...off to c if I can Gmodify my fonts!)

    • 2 years ago
  • JanforGore
    • 0
      JanforGore  

    • A major crop failure would be devastating to human life. But hey, nothing to see here, just move along. I am sure there is a Sarah Palin story out there that is more important.

    • 2 years ago
  • pjacobs51
  • islek
  • KI4CLZ
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