Would you please give me advice on tomatoes infected with fusarium wilt?
Question:
I had a tomato plant that I pulled with strongly suspected fusarium wilt (yellowing leaves on one side and when I cut open the stem it showed the brown striping along the outer ring).
I have a couple of questions:
– is fruit from fusarium infected plants safe to eat? Most of what I am reading says they are but there are a few sources that say they are not.
– I know fusarium is wide spread, but is it the same pathogen that effects them all? As in, if the infected plant is a tomato, could I plant cucumbers in that garden next year?
– what does “high” resistance mean? If next year I plant tomatoes with “high” resistance to races 1-3, does that mean the plants won’t get it at all or that it just won’t bother them?
– is there anything I can do to treat the soil?
– I read that, in general, for this year it won’t spread from plant to plant. Is that true?
Answer:
I’m sorry to hear about the fusarium!
I’ll take your questions in order:
1) Re: food safety. Per the reply here (courtesy of the Ohio State University Extension horticulture program), yes it is safe to eat the fruit.
2) Re: can the pathogen infect other species. Fusarium is caused by the fungal agent Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. Lycopersici. It affects solanaceous garden plants (e.g., tomato, eggplant, peppers), as well as pigweed, mallow, crabgrass, and other nightshades (all of which can be scattered about your property as weeds). Unfortunately, per the Univ of KY Extension, cucumbers can also be affected, so you’ll need to plant something not in the Solanaceae or Cucurbitaceae families.
3) Re: resistance. Resistance is just that–resistance, not immunity. High resistance means they probably won’t suffer mild infections, and can fight off even moderate ones, but severe infestations can still infect even resistant varieties. That said, once you have fusarium in a garden spot, you should absolutely plant resistant varieties as part of your ongoing strategy–they will certainly mitigate infection and in many cases, avoid it.
4) Re: treatment of soil. Unfortunately, there aren’t any fungicidal treatments. Removal of all tomatoes from that bed (including root tissue), crop rotation to a different spot for 3-5 seasons, and conscientious removal of likely host weeds nearby are your best tactics. Pursuing all of those and planting resistant varieties should give you a large advantage in avoiding this moving forward.
5) Re: spread. Fusarium is soil-borne and taken up into infected plants by the roots, so it shouldn’t spread from an infected tomato to a healthy one unless they are planted in the same contaminated soil.
Some additional resources for you:
Univ of MD Extension page on Fusarium Wilt of Tomatoes
Univ of MN Extension page on Fusarium Wilt
NC State Univ Extension page on Fusarium Wilt in tomatoes
Best of luck, and happy gardening.