DANVERS — From a distance, the tomato plants in Bill Clark's fields appear healthy and green with plenty of fruit on the vines.
However, when you walk up the hill and look closer, you see the base of the plants and the stems have turned brown and the leaves have curled.
Some plants are full of green tomatoes. But as they start to ripen, the plant disease known as late blight spreads to the fruit, a ring develops on the underside and the tomato rots.
"We had this to some degree last year, but we have it fivefold this year," said Derek Jones of Salem, Clark's stepson-in-law and chief grower at the 11-acre Hobart Street farm.
"It just starts from the bottom of the tomato and spreads," Jones said.
Since Clark Farm no longer sprays fungicides in a move to go organic, Clark said, 90 percent of his tomato crop has been wiped out. He estimates the loss at $10,000 to $20,000 on just the 1 acre where he planted tomatoes. He's also lost the cost of labor and the effort of growing the plants in a greenhouse, transplanting them, then painstakingly staking them up. He spent $350 on stakes.
"I should be picking a half ton of tomatoes off this field," said Clark, a town selectman.
Other growers in the eastern United States are dealing with what an expert on vegetable pathology says is an unusual outbreak of late blight.
"'Devastation' is the word for it," said Meg McGrath, an associate professor at Cornell University. Reports of late blight are coming to her from as far away as Wisconsin.
"It's really moved, and a lot of people are seeing it," McGrath said.
Infected plants were shipped to big box stores and garden centers from Ohio to Maine, and the disease then spread to plants that were not part of this shipment, according to the state Department of Agricultural Resources.
Some local farms have been spraying their tomatoes to protect their crops.
"Ours is doing very well," said Peter Gibney, owner of Gibney Gardens on South Liberty Street. He has 6 acres of tomatoes and 15,000 plants in the ground. "We've been spraying them with a copper material, which is a natural material that is holding the blight off. But we have to spray them every five days."
"We have not been infected by the late blight because we have been applying fungicide to our tomatoes," said Bob Connors of Connors Farm on Valley Road in Danvers. Connors has been treating his 25,000 plants with two fungicides.
"We have made about eight applications; we are right on top of it. We don't see one speck of blight," Connors said. "Unfortunately, though, the organic growers seem to be spreading this. ... I think a lot of backyard gardeners have it now. All the wet weather we had in June wasn't the best weather to grow tomatoes."
Late blight is caused by a funguslike pathogen called Phytophthora infestans, McGrath said.
"The weather really contributes to long-distance spread," she said.
On overcast days, spores can get up in wind currents and, protected from killer ultraviolet rays, they are later washed by rain down onto plants.
It's the same type of blight that potato farmers in Ireland had to deal with in the mid-1800s.
McGrath said growers need to "get rid of your plants altogether (and) hope that it doesn't happen again."
"We've been pretty lucky," said Mike Marini, an owner of Marini Farm on Linebrook Road in Ipswich. The farm's scout anticipated blight might be a problem, and so Mike Marini and his father, Mario Marini, decided to treat their 10 acres of tomatoes.
"Our biggest problem is they are late," Mike Marini said. "We are just starting to pick now."
Marini said he has heard from organic growers whose fields have been wiped out in just two to three days.
"You can't spray if you are going to go organic," Clark said. Copper-based fungicides that can be used in organic growing are in short supply, Clark added.
Not all of Clark's tomatoes have been lost. An heirloom variety called "Mr. Stripey" and the cherry tomatoes seem to be resistant. Clark has planted a new crop of tomatoes in his greenhouse, so he'll have some later in the season.
Staff writer Ethan Forman can be reached at 978-338-2673 or eforman@salemnews.com.
Got Blight?
Home gardeners who find late blight on their plants should pull them from the soil, stick them in a plastic bag and discard them, not compost them, according to the state Department of Agricultural Resources. This will help prevent the spores from spreading.
"This is a pathogen that needs living plant material to survive," said Meg McGrath, associate professor at Cornell University. Getting rid of the plant will get rid of the pathogen.
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