Bonnie Plants Weighs In On Late Blight

By Greenhouse Grower staff|July 28, 2009

Bonnie Plants began pulling more than $1 million worth of plants from retail locations in the Northeast late last month as a preventative measure after a Late Blight outbreak was confirmed there. Five tomato plants at the company’s New Berlin, N.Y., facility later tested positive for Late Blight, but Bonnie officials believe the disease originated elsewhere in the Northeast.

In a press release Monday, Bonnie Plants officials say the first reports of confirmed Late Blight in the Northeast were on June 23, and no Late Blight disease was detected in any of Bonnie’s 61 greenhouse facilities until July 7. That day, five tomato plants in the New Berlin facility tested positive for the disease. Bonnie says it then took the “necessary, appropriate steps to rid this facility of the disease.”

Bonnie also notes in its press release that the Late Blight outbreak was discovered at retail, and it not only removed all plants visibly infected or not from retail locations, but the company requested its New Jersey, Pennsylvania and West Virginia facilities be inspected for signs of the disease. The New Jersey, Pennsylvania and West Virginia facilities were inspected and were found to be disease free.

Some initial media reports of the Late Bright outbreak in the Northeast indicated the disease originated in its Georgia facilities. But Bonnie Plants says it did not ship any tomato plants to the Northeast from the state of Georgia.

"Bonnie produces millions of tomato plants, any of which could become host to Late Blight,” says Dennis Thomas, general manager of Bonnie Plants. “However, if the pathogen was not present or the weather conditions were sunny and dry, any tomato plant from any grower could not host this disease. In fact, the disease would not have occurred.