Elie, MB. — Wet weather could result in cutting the tomato growing season short in Manitoba this year.
More rain this season means blight, a plant disease, is picking and choosing where it wants to attach and is latching on to whole fields of tomato crops in local farms.
Erin Crampton with Crampton’s Market said blight is recognizable by its rotting marks on leaves and its brown and white patches and fungus look on the tomato. However she said tomatoes inherently don’t look perfect, so regular brown marks or lines shouldn’t be mistaken for blight.
“Little bits of scarring or little things doesn’t affect tomato taste at all. Always going to be looking for little bits of seams or lines, that’s totally fine. It does not affect the taste at all,” said Crampton.
Justin Girard with the small farm Hearts and Roots in Elie, Manitoba said tomatoes are his cash crop and a hit like this makes it difficult to make money and re-invest in to future crops for next season. He describes blight as an inevitable doom that you just can’t fight.
“There’s nothing that can eradicate blight. Once blight takes hold, once it takes 20% of your crop it’s going to be game over shortly,” said Girard.
Girard said when he noticed the first round of blight in his crops he immediately burned it, but after such a large spread he said you lose sleep over it, but eventually you’re just too tired to continue literally burning away money. He said he’s looking at losing thousands of dollars due to the blight.
Experts said its best not to grow tomatoes or anything from the tomato family, including peppers, potatoes, and eggplants, on the patches hit wit blight for the next year or two just to keep your crop safe. But, growing from other families is okay to do.
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