Plant Diseases

Prevention and early identification are crucial to minimizing damage from disease in your garden and landscape. Cornell University and CCE Chautauqua’s Master Gardeners have several resources available to help you implement best practices to avoid diseases, identify problems when they do occur and to choose appropriate strategies to minimize damage and further contamination.

Visit Cornell Gardening’s Home Gardening page for a fact sheet on best practices for Minimizing Diseases in Vegetable Gardens as well as flower and vegetable Growing Guides that list common diseases for each plant.

For a comprehensive list of plant disease fact sheets visit Cornell’s Plant Disease Diagnostic Clinic website, where you’ll find detailed fact sheets in alphabetical order and instructions for collecting and submitting samples for identification or search through a list of diseases by crop.

What’s Wrong with My Plant?, a user-friendly tool available through the University of Minnesota Extension office, allows you to select a plant (including vegetables and fruits, annuals, perennials, trees, shurbs, and turf) and its symptoms and then view photos and brief descriptions of the likely cause.

If you’re in the Syracuse area, CCE Chautauqua’s Master Gardeners are available to assist with plant disease diagnosis and management strategies. Call our hotline, or stop by our booth June-October at the downtown Syracuse farmer’s market in Clinton Square on Tuesdays.

Last updated April 4, 2015