Tomato late blight, where are the press releases?
It seems to me that this would or should be a bigger story? Bonnie Growers, supplier of vegetable plants for most of the box and chain stores across the country send out infected plants to millions of people. Yet, at least in the blogging world I have heard hardly a peep. Is this story somehow under the radar, or am I just making too much out if this?
I checked out Bonnies web site, nothing. Home depot, nothing. Lowes, nothing. Wal-mart, nothing. If we knew we had sent out tomatoes plants that we’re infected we would be freaking out. Late blight can cause the tomato plants to die. Thousands of people who bought tomatoes at one of these stores could have infected plants. The disease has also spread from these home gardens to commercial fields.
I can only imagine how my customers, who have waited all winter and spring to plant their tomatoes, would feel if they had to pull them up. I would hear no end of it, and rightly so. One of my local suppliers had to stop shipping their tomatoes, right in the middle of the season, because of suspected problems (they we’re cleared).
Think of the implications of depending on one grower for all you vegetable needs. When something goes wrong it can affect many people. Bonnie say’s they didn’t send out infected plants on purpose. It was a terrible mistake, yet why no mention of this at the companies web site. Shouldn’t all of these companies be warning their customers of this potential problem?
Are their any bloggers on the east coast that have had to deal with this? I heard it could be in Ohio, too? As far as the companies mentioned above, why no mention in your web sites? Shouldn’t the gardening public be warned about this?
Haven’t heard a word. The news stations haven’t talked about it. The papers aren’t talking about it. I don’t know of all the bonnie plants have been pulled. The local Southern States (feed coop) buys from Bonnies and I think they would have thrown away all the plants by now.
Would like to hear from others in the Northeast.
Hi Trey
The little heirloom Mexican cherry tomatoes on my terrace, bought as seedlings, were grown locally and show no signs of sickness, so I guess I didn’t mention it because it didn’t affect me – which is an ostrich-like reaction, I know…
I wrote a small post on it just about a week ago and sent it out to all my newsletter subscribers. http://mistkits.com/Blog/?p=1659
I haven’t heard too much about it on the news either. You would think it would be something that the public should be made aware of, especially how you should not compost the infected plants. I was talking to my neighbor about it and she mentioned she had tossed an infected plant in her compost. She didn’t know she should have thrown it in the trash to be incinerated.
It is probably quiet because the big box stores are refunding money and the fewer people who ask for it means there is more left for the company. The neighbor wasn’t aware of the refund either.
One problem I see is the fact that it isn’t just affecting tomatoes. It can affect potatoes, celery, petunias, and bittersweet nightshade. So even if a gardener finds an infected tomato plant and throws it out, they are not aware that it may still be in their vegetable or flower gardens.
Sounds like a recipe for disaster to me. I hope Maine commercial potato growers don’t get affected by it.
Hauntingly familiar scenarios in our food supply chains as well, for example hamburger meat being pulled from shelves nationwide (single cows becoming scattered in a zillion burgers), gourmet lettuce recalled all over the place from one source, etc.
I worry a lot that due to the depressed economy, Americans are being increasingly sheltered from news that could inhibit any desire to go shopping, at all costs. People need to know these things!!
This late blight is like the “Mad Cow” of gardening, with how it infects not just single plants but can spread across the garden. Just another good reason to BUY LOCAL and skip the big box.
It was on NPR last week, specifically relating to how it had spread from home gardens to commercial tomato fields, and how the organic farmers were in really big trouble since only pesticides worked to control it. I also thought I heard something about it on CNN a day or two ago…but I could be wrong…
Bonnie is not the Only Grower affected by blight-And there are news stories that clearly say Bonnie did not ship infected plants. The plants got blight —because of three things- rainy/cool weather conditions, the pathogen- the tomato (or potato or petunia is the host). Any brand could have it.
So far, it’s been a local/regional problem. If you do a google news search, you will find articles about it from the affected areas. We just had a hail storm that destroyed thousands of acres of corn and soybeans and that didn’t make it outside the local either.
Remember the geranium/ralstonia quarantines a few years ago? Did that ever make it to the news?
And lets face it–potential gardening disasters are small potatoes (media wise) compared to dead celebrities, philandering politicians and the conspiracy de jour.
We received a press release from UMass Extension about late blight and covered it as our Q&A a couple of weeks ago: http://hortmag.com/article/tomatolateblight/
The lack of tomato/late blight stories on national or West Coast news outlets is similar to the lack of coverage here of the midwest spread of the emerald ash borer. If you can’t see it, it’s not a problem! Sort of like California’s ignorance of the Japanese beetle…or fire ants.
But one jet airline ride can change all that, unfortunately.
On another note, anyone here in CA having any “Furlough Friday” sales? Seems like growing your own (less expensive) winter vegetables in CA may soon be a hot topic, especially among state workers.
I agree with Callie, I heard about this on NPR first I think. I have heard a lot of gardeners complaining about aphids, but nothing yet of blight on their tomatoes. If there was a massive die off, I’m sure it would be big blogosphere garden news.
I just received a phone call from someone, asking if we had any tomato plants. She explained that she had bought and planted 18 of them, went away on vacation, and came back to find them all shrivelled up and dead. Mind you, we’ve had something like 27 rainy days out of 31, so they certainly didn’t dry up. I asked where she had purchased them from, and she responded, “Walmart”. I then explained about the early blight problem, which she hadn’t heard of.
Bummer — it’s mid-July. (Fortunately we did have a few left over, which we potted up into larger containers, are healthy, and many have nicely developing fruits.)
I bought a couple of bonnie tomato plants at Home Depot this Spring and they died very quickly. I normally end up throwing green plants away after they quit yielding but these two never even bloomed. Maybe I got some tainted ones.
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we lost 10 plants our hole crop of tomatoes we are just sick we love to can and make salsa I have been gardening for 4 years and this has just crushed me but you live and learn . I just thought it was to much rain .
We live in Atlantic Iowa and we garden on a friends small farm . we have a small home garden and we are going to watch it