At Sweetland Farm in Trumansburg, late blight was found in potato fields in early August. To contain the disease, grower Paul Martin mowed the potato foliage and burned the residue with a propane torch. CSA members received potatoes in their shares, but were advised to eat them quickly because although late blight is harmless to people, affected produce will not store well and should not be composted. Sweetland usually doles out potatoes slowly throughout the fall, but not this year. All the potatoes will be gone by the end of August.
Soon after the potato discovery, late blight was also found on Sweetland tomatoes. "It was slightly torturous to pull those beautiful plants so early, but we know what the future holds if the infection is left unchecked," growers Martin and Evangeline Sarat wrote to their CSA members in a weekly update. "We felt that the safest policy for our farm, as well for our impact on other farms and gardens, was to be very pro-active and get rid of the plants before the disease was rampant."
So far, their greenhouse tomatoes have been spared. "We feel very fortunate to have a CSA," they wrote. "The financial burden of this kind of potential crop failure is usually all on the farmers' shoulders. In a CSA we all share the risk, rather than just the farmers. If we were not a CSA we would be facing a major loss of gross income this season - many farmers in the North East are. Thanks to the CSA model, all we have lost this year is a lot of time put into growing the potato and tomato crops - and the crops."
Sweetland Farm is not alone. Three Swallows Farm in Danby has reported late blight in field and greenhouse tomatoes, and Stick and Stone Farm in Ithaca has begun to see signs of the
disease in greenhouses as well. Copper sprays, one of the few approved organic methods to fight the disease, have been used, but with little effect. Previous posts about Late Blight include:
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