Wet Cold summer in Ontario

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Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, farmer vs fungus
Dakshana Bascaramurty, Globe and Mail - Aug. 21, 2009

Jessie Sosnicki hovers over a small pile of heirloom tomatoes. Rays of the 8 a.m. sun leak into the Brick Works Farmers' Market, setting the green, orange, yellow and red tomatoes aglow.

In another year, those bulbous and ribbed heirlooms would have drawn a queue of Torontonians all Saturday long at the market.

But this summer, the few she grew in her greenhouse are gone in half an hour.

Ms. Sosnicki's most popular offering has been ravaged by “black death,” a condition that leaves her tomatoes desiccated and diminutive.

“They're usually very lush and vigorous and beautiful plants,” she said. “When it's black death, it's like shrivelled little skeletons with leaves dropping off.”

Ms. Sosnicki's entire crop of field tomatoes near Waterford, Ont., about 130 kilometres southwest of Toronto, was destroyed this year by late blight – the same fungus responsible for the Irish potato famine. Spores of the fungus have scattered across much of Southern and Eastern Ontario, and the Northeastern United States.

The cool, wet conditions in the last few months has amounted to what agriculturalists call “the year without a summer.”

Heat-seeking plants such as tomatoes, melons and corn aren't ripening on schedule, and sometimes they're dead on arrival, because the low temperatures and soaked fields have created the perfect breeding ground for fungi. Environment Canada reported July temperatures were colder than they've been since 1992. The 119.5 millimetres of rain that pelted Toronto this July was 77 per cent more than the average in all previous years.

The unforgiving climate has amounted to a culinary loss for Torontonians and a huge financial hit for area farmers, especially those who specialize in organics.

Ms. Sosnicki usually sells more than 450 kilograms of organic tomatoes at the Brick Works each Saturday, but this year she's been able to produce only about 30 kilograms of heirlooms per week in her greenhouse.

“There's not really any way we can make up for this,” she said with a sigh, calling her loss “substantial.”

Ms. Sosnicki perched a small sign in front of her tomato display that read, “Sorry no field tomatoes, blight killed them. Enjoy the greenhouse heirlooms.”

Mary Ruth McDonald, an agriculture professor at the University of Guelph who specializes in plant diseases, said even producers who use fungicides have had trouble fighting late blight, because plants usually need to be sprayed before they're infected.

“You don't know that your plant is infected until it's already too late,” she said.

At Wes Sovereign's table at St. Lawrence Market, his greenhouse-grown cocktail cluster tomatoes are perfect crimson globes on the table, but his humbling offerings of large, heirlooms line the bottom of a cardboard box.

“I only have a couple baskets. Normally I'd be picking bushels and bushels by now. It looks like we're going to lose … the majority of plants,” he said.

Mr. Sovereign, who operates a farm just a few kilometres from Ms. Sosnicki's, has also battled the black death this summer. His first planting was a dud, and he fears what will happen to the next.

“Blight, once it dries on the plant, the spores will blow in the wind. It can very easily move to the next one,” he said.

People who wait all year for Mr. Sovereign's tomatoes have been vocal about their disappointment, he said.

“Especially those heirloom tomatoes – people are missing that. Some people get angry,” he said.

Martin Harbury hates produce “ripened in a truck” and treks to farmers' markets almost every weekend. After surveying Ms. Sosnicki's modest display of heirlooms on Saturday morning, he bought three.

“A supermarket tomato, they all taste the same, basically. With these it's sort of a little surprise and explosion with every different one you try,” he said.

Even farmers whose fields haven't been hit by fungi have had a rough season.

The relentless rain has left Rich Matthews apologizing to people who ask for beans at his table at St. Lawrence Market after he's run out.

“When you have this amount of rain, it's just no good. It just sits there and it rots,” he said of his farm north of Hamilton, where he estimates yields are down 20 per cent from previous years.

The effects of the summer weather could trickle down to livestock production next year, said E. Ann Clark, a professor of plant agriculture at the University of Guelph.

She said it's been a terrible year for making dry hay, which is an important source of livestock feed in the winter.

“If there's a problem feeding those things, it's definitely something that calls for stronger attention to risk management,” she said.stromanbieter vergleich