Late Blight-Potato Famine- Striking the Midwest USA

I feel this has relevance to the threads on flu- as I suspect (though cannot prove) that the GMO crops in abundance, that are lessening the worlds' ability to fight infections, might have something to do with the number of swine flu infections (at least in the States).

www.reuters.com...

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Late blight, which caused the Irish Potato Famine of the 1840s and 1850s, is killing potato and tomato plants in home gardens from Maine to Ohio and threatening commercial and organic farms, U.S. plant scientists said on Friday.

Both corporate and "organic" farms seem to be effected by this: and the large retailers who supply mas-produced food seem to be spreading the problem:

Wal-mart, Home Depot, Sears, Kmart and Lowe's are some of the stores the plants have been seen in," McGrath said in a telephone interview.

In spite of this blight, there is a SOLUTION! Fungicides! (Monsanto, Cargill- who knows where they come from....):

She said commercial farmers will be able to use fungicides containing chlorothalonil to control the blight.

During a public health crisis we need all of the healthy foods we can get- and both potatoes and tomatoes are rich in nutrients. With this blight and the subsequent fungicidal poisoning of the plants, we can expect worse nutrition, an increase in systemic fungal disease in people (resistance to the plant fungicides and the concommitant toxicology imposed upon those who eat the produce), and ultimately, a sicker population--- more ripe (pardon the pun) for infection by flu- or any other opportunistic microbe.

It's been 160 years or so since we've seen this kind of blight- it killed countless Irish people, who left their countries or came here- and it signals a vast loss of one of the greatest treasures of the US- our farmland. In loosing the quality of nutritious food, we loose the ability to fight off obesity, diabetes, hypertension, cardio/pulmonary diseases------and infectious disease. This could not have emerged at a more challenging time.

Please- post anything else you know of this- and thanks

Thanks for this, OP.

My tomatoes, in KS have been dying on the vine...weird stuff. I'm going to have to look it up to see if it looks like this Blight you've posted about.

I hate to admit it, but some of my plants came from wally world. I've been looking at some heirloom seed packages, but they are very expensive.

Thanks again!

oops...looks like they are discussing it HERE.

[edit on 13-7-2009 by KSPigpen]

There is a university in TN that just lost it tomato crop to blight. Just a couple of weeks earlier, it was just being found on the East Coast. It's kinda ironic that the Irish came here to get away from it. Where would we be able to go to get away from it?

reply to post by CultureD

This is one of the reasons I selected an odd ball crop like amaranth.

I plan to grow other things as well, but if you think outside the box
you can avoid things that are notorious for crop failure.