This is what nasty verticillium wilt disease has caused to my tomato plants! It's started with one or two lower stems wilting and at the final step the whole plant succumbs to it.
Verticillium wilt is a disease caused by fungus pathogen from one of the three species of Verticillium genus, that is: V. Dahliae, V. albo-atrum and V.longisporum. The symptoms are superficially similar to Fusarium wilts. Wilt itself is the most common sympton, with wilting of the stem and leaves occurring due to the blockage of the xyem vascular tissues and therefore reduced water and nutrient flow to the stems (note: xylem is the vascular tissue in plants that conducts water and dissolved nutrient upward from the root and also helps to form the woody element in the stem). Other symptoms include stunting, chlorosis or yellowing of the leaves, necrosis or tissue death, and defoliation. Internal vascular tissue discoloration might be visible when the stem is cut. (source: Wikipedia)
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| Blockage of water on the xylem vascular tissue is visible on the tree trunk. . |
There is no chemical control for the disease but some ways that maybe be useful to reduce the spread and impact of the disease is doing crop rotation, planting resistant varieties and deep plowing. Only, I have no idea if we could reuse the container soil for the next planting season since the disease can stay in the soil for many years. :-( So, far I discarded the dead plants with all the soil.
