How to prevent bacterial wilt in your tomato farm

Tomato with the botanical name Solanium lycopasicum, is a fruit vegetable which can be grown in a well drain loamy soil with a moderate proportion of organic manure. 

Tomato is an important fruit vegetable and growing it comes with a number of challenges, among which are diseases, pest control, adequate manuring to mention a few.
In today's article we are going to talk about one of the most important disease of a tomato plant.

Bacterial wilt

Bacterial wilt (also known as Southern bacterial blight) is caused by a bacterium know as Ralstonia  solanacearum (formally, Pseudomonas solanacearum). Ralstonia solanacearum is a soil-borne microorganism which gets into the plant through wounds caused by cutting, pest attack and transplanting.Bacterial wilt is a dangerous disease. Its development is favoured by high moisture (water in soil pores) as well as high temperature.  The bacterium Ralstonia solanacearum which causes bacterial wilt normally blocks or clogs the vascular tissue of the stem of the plants and hinders the movement of water and nutrients within the plant, thus leading to rapid wilting and dying of the plant.

Read also>>Causes of plant diseases

Symptoms of Bacterial wilt of tomato

As the name implies, wilting is the leading symptom of this disease,  brownish color may also appears inside the stem of infected plants. Also the plant may eventually die off in a severe case.

a tomato plant that is affected by bacterial wilt disease

Prevention and control of bacterial wilt of tomato

  • Removal and burning of infected plants
  • Crop rotation to avoid continuation of this diseases when the causer organism is already in the soil and crops such as pepper, eggplant should not follow tomato in the rotation
  • Plant resistant varieties which you can find in Agricultural research centres.

Read also>>10 diseases in poultry and their symptoms

Tip:Too much manure may not be suitable for a tomato plant as it in a case of over manuring always grows vegetatively with less production.

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