WOOLWICH

Jim and Jon Economou grow thousands of tomato plants at Swango Farm. They don’t want a repeat of 2011 — when they lost them all.

Like farmers and backyard gardeners across the Northeast, Swango Farm lost its tomatoes to the devastating late blight that comes with incessant latesummer rain and cool temperatures. Conditions such as those that have been prevalent throughout June.

It’s a tad early for late tomato blight to set in. But unlike in 2011, the Economous are ready to protect their plants.

“My seed company from New York just called a few days ago, and reported two cases in New York late last week,” Jim Economou said Tuesday. “I was thinking about it today. We’ve had experiences in the past. We have like 3,000 tomato plants, and we cannot afford to have them go down. You can lose them all in a week.”

Dave Handley, a vegetable and small fruits specialist with the University of Maine Cooperative Extension, agreed with Economou that gardeners should be watching their tomatoes closely.

“It’s on the radar,” Handley said Wednesday for Highmoor Farm in Monmouth. “They have positive hits in Massachusetts, and we have had one isolated field in northern Maine.”

Handley added that there have been no new sightings of late tomato blight in the state in the past two weeks.

“We should certainly be keeping an eye out for it,” he said. “This stuff thrives in rainy or foggy weather. These would be good conditions for late blight to be moving around.”

Handley advises gardeners to visit the University of Maine Cooperative Extension website — www.extension.umaine.edu — to find or post notices of blight.

If blight is detected early, Handley said, you can pinch off the infected leaves, seal them in a plastic big and get rid of them. If the disease is further along, pull the entire plant and dispose of in the same manner, he said.

Handley said he doesn’t envision late blight to the extent of 2009 or 2011, because in those years it was widespread by now.

“Breeders are coming up with resistant varieties, but they ripen later,” he said.

State horticulturist Ann Gibbs said she has taken blight reports from Vermont, northern Massachusetts and Aroostook County.

“It’s starting to show up here and there,” Gibbs said, “and obviously we have had wonderful conditions for this disease to manifest itself.”

Gibbs added, however, that the state has been inspecting tomato transplants and has yet to identify a problem.

Moreover, there have been some dry stretches of weather mixed in with the wet.

She cautions gardeners to avoid handling their plants more than necessary. Welldrained soil is best — though it’s too late to do anything about that now. Heavy foliage is not desirable, and good air flow around the plant is helpful.

Swango Farm has been burned with late blight before, like most other gardeners, and the Economous are ready. They have copper hydroxide, a drying agent and an organic fungicide at the ready.

“We’re not taking anything for granted,” Jim Economou said.

Swango Farm is battling another problem not related to plant growth. The state will being working on the stretch of road where its farmstand is located in West Bath after Labor Day, and customers will have to take a detour to get there. Economou said he is considering relocating his stand for this September.

lgrard@timesrecord.com

LATE BLIGHT

¦ LATE BLIGHT is caused by Phytophthora infestans, a fungus-like organism. This pathogen is an obligate parasite, which means that it can only survive on a host: It cannot live in soil or dead plant debris. Cool, moist weather is conducive to the development of the disease. Nighttime temperatures in the 50s and daytime temperatures in the 70s accompanied by rain, fog, or heavy dew are ideal late blight conditions.

¦ LATE BLIGHT LESIONS can occur on all above-ground plant parts of tomatoes and potatoes. Leaf lesions first appear as fastgrowing, irregularly shaped, soaked spots. These usually appear at the tips of the leaves or on actively growing tissue. In cool, wet weather, late blight may move rapidly from leaves to petioles and stems, and infect an entire field in only a few days.

¦ IF YOU SUSPECT late blight in your garden, contact the University of Maine Cooperative Extension, Pest Management Office at 800-287-0279

SOURCE: UMaine Cooperative Extension.