The Blight Fungus

In the mid 1800’s, Ireland went through a brutal potato famine that wiped out as much as a quarter of their population. Irish farmers, so reliant on its potato harvest every year, could do nothing once ‘late blight’ had wiped out the potato crops.

Fast forward about 150 years, and in the Northeast we are this summer experiencing our own strand of blight. According to Professor William Fry of Cornell University, the current outbreak of tomato blight has spread because of infected tomatoes sold by Wal-Mart for home-gardeners. Wal-Mart has since recalled all tomato seedlings that were produced by the company that produced the infected tomatoes. Once infected with blight, a tomato crop can be wiped out within days.

Farmers in the Northeast have become extremely concerned about the possibility of the blight wiping out their harvest. The blight, which is a fungus that can develop in the soil and usually infects either tomatoes or potatoes, is extremely contagious and capable of jumping from one plant to an entire field if the infectious spores seep out from even one opening.

The blight fungus works at an alarmingly fast pace as well. A couple that came down to the garden the other day told me an ominous tale about what happened to their tomatoes this summer. They had been growing at a prolific pace, in large part thanks to the increased amount of rainfall we’ve seen this summer. But one day, they noticed a powdery white substance accumulating on their tomatoes. Within a couple of days, their entire supply of tomatoes had been wiped out. There was nothing they could do about it. The only prudent thing would have simply been to destroy all of their tomatoes, but the blight saw to that, anyways.

The only preventive measure that can be taken against the blight fungus is a certain fungicide, which makes it especially dangerous for organic farmers.

So far in the 1812 Garden, I haven’t seen any signs of blight. Our tomatoes have been growing at a prodigious rate and I would be extremely disappointed if anything was to happen to them. But putting things in perspective, it’s hard to get too worked up about our tomatoes. If we lose them, then we lose them. But for the many farmers who are relying on their tomato harvest as a big source of income, this blight has had far more serious ramifications. And certainly no one needs further reminder of what the blight meant for Irish potato farmers in the mid 1850’s. The blight fungus is one of the most destructive poisons out there for a farmer.

Moskin, Julia. "Late Blight Fungus Threatens Tomato Crop in Northeast and Mid-Atlantic." The New York times 17 Jul 2009 Web.3 Aug 2009. <http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/nyregion/18tomatoes.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=tomato%20blight&st=cse>.