Does this look like Late Blight, or similar?

14 years ago

Snapped some shots of suspicious rot and dead foliage at a local community garden.

I need to know what this might be. I suspect late blight because of the rotten fruit, but I didn't notice any brown lesions on the stems. I was thinking the dead foliage may be from stressed plants. Maybe all the fruit rot and dead leaves could be from stress and lack of consistent watering.

Can I get some thoughts on this? I want to find out if it is Late Blight (if so, it came from Bonnie most likely). A couple reasons I need to know if this is a problem. 1) I might be joining the board for the community garden, and should address any disease problems since other people don't seem to be aware of it. 2) Also, the photos and info will help my tomato diseases and disorders page on my Web site. This page needs some more info, as I've only got photos of one or two problems since I've been lucky enough not to have much disease in my tomatoes.

So I'll stop rambling now. You get the picture, I need some good info/advice on what these problems may be.

BTW none of these are my own tomatoes. I'll most likely be growing in this garden next year and I want my tomatoes as well as everyone else's tomatoes to be healthy.

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Green fruit (Beefmaster, not many fruit were rotten like this)

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Foliage (many tomatoes showed this symptom, I suspect either stress or blight)

They also have a patch of potatoes that is beginning the harvesting period, and the plants have some brown-looking foliage as well. Plenty of potatoes and solanaceous weeds in the area. This is the first year for this garden; it was just tilled up this spring in the back of a field.

Comments (5)

llhowland44
14 years ago
I've had stressed tomatoes before- they get blossom end rot and look kind of scrawny and ugly- they've never looked that bad. I've been looking at pictures of late blight (see my blog below)your pictures aren't looking too hopeful. Sorry

Here is a link that might be useful: blog
catman529
Original Author
14 years ago
Well like I said these aren't my tomatoes, they're among many others that look similar (some are in better shape though). But since I may be joining the board for this garden and will probably grow my own tomatoes there next year, I want to make sure measures are taken to prevent spreading the disease to next year's crop (e.g. telling everyone not to compost their tomatoes, potatoes, etc and discard everything)

I'm hoping this gets ID'ed and I hope it's not too serious a problem. I highly suspect Bonnie plants because of the late blight coming from their plants. Plenty of the tomatoes grown in this community garden are Bonnie plants, I can see their original plant tags in the ground.

Only thing that doesn't make it look like late blight is the stems. There aren't the characteristic brown areas on the stems; some stems have a slight brownish mottling but no solid brown spots like I've seen in photos. But I'm not letting that rule out late blight just yet. Everything else, especially the fruit rot, looks like symptoms of late blight. What's sad is that I don't think many if any of the people know about it. I haven't heard anybody mention "diseases" or "blights" and many of the growers are novices. I'm hoping I can intervene and educate some of these people...I'm sure some are more experienced, but the majority are new to gardening and wouldn't know much if anything about blights.

Anyway I will be doing what I can to help out in the garden. And I'm looking forward to getting my own spot in there next year. I will probably even grow extra and give away free tomato seedlings to anyone who wants to grow them in the community garden next spring.
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missingtheobvious
14 years ago
catman, I wonder if the horrible tomato in your first photo might have had some sort of physical damage before the rot got it? It might be unrelated to the general disease in the plot.

Or are there other fruit in that same condition?
star_stuff
14 years ago
I'm not sure what's wrong with that plant, but your website is awesome LOL! I love the green background color ~very calming, and all the great pictures & information! Looks like you are getting every aspect covered. Good luck educating the community gardeners ~ directing them to your website will definitely help, and growing extra seedlings to hand out is a good way to ensure that strong, quality plants get in the garden. :-)
catman529
Original Author
14 years ago
missingtheobvious - I did see some other fruit in similar condition. Much of the fruit rot I saw looked like symptoms of Late Blight. It could be other damage though; is it possible that bird or insect damage could get infected and end up like the tomato in my 1st picture?

star_stuff - thank you, I appreciate it.