Late blight found in Manitoba tomatoes

Tomato plants infected with late blight were on sale at retail stores in Manitoba this month. Most of the plants have been removed and destroyed, thanks to the keen eye of a Manitoba Agriculture employee.However, some infected tomato plants have ended up in Manitoba gardens, and the provincial government is asking gardeners to check for lesions and grey-green patches on their tomato plants.”If you see the fungus kinds of things in your home garden, the tomatoes are not going to survive,” said Brian Wilson, a potato specialist with Manitoba Agriculture. “The best thing you can do at that point is to remove the plant, double bag it, seal it and make sure the plant is dead before it goes into a landfill.”A Manitoba Agriculture employee detected late blight on tomato plants while shopping at a retail store earlier in June, Wilson said.”It’s a first for us in Manitoba but not the first for North America.”Late blight was detected last year in tomato plants at a retail operation in Maine.Provincial officials determined the plants came from a Manitoba greenhouse, but they aren’t sure what caused the infection.”The supplier removed the material, and all of the material that was in the greenhouse and in the retail operations was destroyed properly,” Wilson said.Manitoba’s commercial potato growers will need to adhere to disease management protocols now that late blight innoculum is in the province, , he added.”It’s not a year where you want to take any shortcuts.”

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