Dr. Beth Guigino, Vegetable Pathology Specialist at Penn State University, reported yesterday that late blight was confirmed on locally grown greenhouse tomato transplants in northwestern PA. This follows reports of outbreaks in Louisiana, Florida and Maryland. The symptomatic plants in Pennsylvania have been destroyed and the grower has adopted a fungicide spray program to manage the disease. The inoculum source has not been identified. The Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture has been screening tomato transplants received for wholesale and retail markets in the state and so far none have been identified as having late blight.

Given the cool and rainy weather conditions of the past several weeks, which favor late blight, it is a good idea to alert growers and gardeners alike of the potential for the disease to occur in Ohio. Late blight does not survive the winter in Ohio unless it is protected in living plant tissue. A possible source of inoculum at this time of year is volunteer potato plants that were infected last season. Volunteer potatoes should be destroyed as soon as they emerge, particularly if late blight was observed in the area last year. Gardeners should watch the space where potatoes were planted last year and remove and destroy any potato plants that emerge. Commercial growers planting corn after potatoes may consider several herbicide options (http://ipmnews.msu.edu/vegetable/).

When purchasing potato seed or tomato transplants, growers and gardeners alike should inspect the planting material carefully and reject any with disease symptoms. Fungicides are available for management of late blight but in general must be applied before the disease appears. For gardeners, products containing the active ingredient chlorothalanil are recommended. Read the label carefully and apply the fungicide according to label requirements. Commercial growers have a number of products available to them. Tomato late blight management recommendations for gardeners and growers (conventional and organic) are available in VegNet 16(14), June 25, 2009 (http://vegnet.osu.edu/news/currentvn1409.htm).

Ash wood is both economically important and culturally iconic in the United States: it can be turned into furniture, flooring, cabinetry, tool handles, traditional baskets, landscape timbers and, of course, the baseball bats used to play the American pastime.

But native North American species of this hardwood are threatened by emerald ash borer (EAB), an invasive insect that has already killed millions of ash trees and could jeopardize all ash resources in the United States and Canada.

To highlight the many ways in which ash can be utilized even as EAB decimates trees in neighborhoods and woodlands alike, the Ohio State University EAB Outreach Team is asking people and business in Ohio and beyond to get creative with the extra ash wood becoming available and share pictures or videos of their creations.

"Chainsaw carvings, crafts, furniture, sports implements, even milled boards used in a building," said Amy Stone, an OSU Extension educator and coordinator of the Ohio State EAB Outreach Team.

"We want to find out how citizens and businesses are utilizing this hardwood resource to make something valuable and constructive."

Pictures and links to YouTube videos can be sent to showusyourash@gmail.com. The images and videos will be featured on http://ashalert.osu.edu.

The "Show Us Your Ash" initiative is part of activities planned for this year's EAB Awareness Week, which will be held May 23-29, right before Memorial Day. Get updates by following http://twitter.com/ohioeab.