GET RID OF PLANTS

Anyone who has purchased tomato plants of any variety, potato plants or eggplants is encouraged to move quickly.

“If someone happens to have bought a plant in the last week, they should take it back out of their garden, bag it and landfill it. Do not compost it,” Lenox Barlow said.

“If your plant wasn’t grown locally, you want to remove it.”

She also warns against burning the infected plant.

“The spores that aren’t burned will move through the air.”

Spores move effectively when there is moisture, so the weather on Monday, as well as that forecast for the rest of the week, increased concern.

Even if residents did not buy infected plants, they should be alert.

“If their neighbors bought them, they should be checking” their own plants, Lenox Barlow added.

WET, BROWN LEAVES

Cornell Cooperative Extension recommends examining your tomato and potato plants thoroughly at least once a week for signs of late blight.

“The lesions are olive brown, or a little purplish,” she said. “They may look wet. That doesn’t mean they are wet. It’s just the appearance.”

BIG-FARM FEARS