Per the New York Times, a fungus called the late blight (Phytophthora infestans) is threatening tomato crops and garden plants in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic. The spores of the fungus ... are often present in the soil, and small outbreaks are not uncommon in August and September. But the cool, wet weather in June and the aggressively infectious nature of the pathogen have combined to produce what Martin A. Draper, a senior plant pathologist at the United States Department of Agriculture, described as an “explosive” rate of infection. The article says that William Fry, a plant pathology professor at Cornell, has been genetically tracking the fungus and says its spread is due in part to "hundreds of thousands" of...
Continue reading »
