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 VERTICILLIUM WILT
Symptoms: A fungal disease, verticilium wilt affects a wide range of fruits and vegetables, especially tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, and eggplants. Trees subject to infection are pear, cherry, plum and roses. The disease fungi invade the water conducting tissue of the host plant and interfere with the upward flow of water, causing wilting and death. Symptoms of verticillium wilt are indicated by new growth dying in summer months. Typically, leaves at the ends of branches turn yellow, wilt and fall before the entire limb or branch dies. Often one branch or one side of the plant is affected.
Verticillium wilt overwinters in garden debris and fallen fruit, and lives in the soil. (Verticillium fungi can survive for 10 or more years in the soil without a host plant.) The disease is transmitted and moved during cultivation, transplanting, or by flowing water and soil moisture. Verticillium also is transmitted from plant to plant by grafting and budding.
Control: There is no cure for this soil borne disease. Sulfur applications applied weekly once the symptoms have been noticed may have some effect, but prevention practices will be more effective in the long run. Choose resistant varieties when available. Remove stricken growth and sterilize clippers between cuts. It is best to remove the entire plant and solarize the soil* before planting again in the same location. Crop rotation will have limited success because so many crops are susceptible to the disease fungi.
* To solarize your soil, you must leave a clear plastic tarp on the soil surface for 4-6 weeks during the hottest part of the year. Soil solarization will reduce or eliminate many soil inhabiting pests, including nematodes, fungi, insects, weeds and weed seeds.
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