Downy mildew on a basil plant: From the Cornell Dept. of Plant Pathology website. It's downy, it's mildew-ey, and it's out to wilt your basil, the Times Herald-Record reports:
It's called downy mildew, and it's infecting basil plants across New York, as well as other states. The disease is harmless to humans. But it turns basil leaves an unsightly yellow, as well as leaving purplish-gray spots of spores on the leaves' undersides. Eventually, the leaves die. And the disease spreads quickly, either through contaminated seeds or wind-swept spores.
The Cornell Department of Plant Pathology is asking for reports of all sightings of downy mildew, which it says first appeared in the northeast U.S. in 2008. There's no doubt about it -- it's a bad bug.
