Specialty Crop Diseases Observed After Hailstorms (EC3029)

The environment plays a major role in the process of infection and disease development in several specialty crop plants by providing the conditions needed for certain pathogens to cause disease. Hail accompanied by summer thunderstorms will often cause damage that can kill or severely wound plants. This type of injury can not only be lethal to plants by itself, but also opens wounds that can then assist in the entry of opportunistic pathogens, particularly bacteria. The bacteria all are favored by warm and moist conditions.