Anthracnose
Risk near you, next 48h
See whether your local forecast favours this disease right now.
When it strikes
Treat, then re-check in 5–7 days
Pick off the worst material, apply the organic option below, and look again after five to seven days. If the spread continued, escalate rather than repeating the same treatment.
Rain and irrigation splash
Water splashing off soil and infected leaves carries it upward and along the row. Watering at the base and mulching the soil surface break the route.
It carries over to next season in soil, debris or seed — which is why rotation matters here, not just treatment.
Keep out of the compost
This survives a garden heap. Bag it for municipal green waste, which is composted industrially at temperatures a garden heap cannot reach, or burn it where that is permitted.
When and where to look
Scout the planting while temperatures hold between 20°C and 30°C, with humidity above 85%, after rain or heavy dew, while the leaves are still wet. Risk builds after roughly 8 unbroken hours of those conditions, so the morning after such a night is the moment to look.
Rule these out first
Same category, and at least one host crop in common — so they are genuinely confusable in the same part of the garden.
The signs that lead here
Full problem lists for these crops
About
Anthracnose (Colletotrichum species) is a warm-wet-weather disease of beans, cucurbits, tomatoes, and many trees and shrubs, causing sunken fruit lesions that ruin marketable yield.
Symptoms
Dark, sunken circular lesions on fruit often oozing pink spore masses when wet; irregular dead blotches on leaves along veins; cankers on stems and twigs.
Organic Treatment
Remove infected fruit and debris, mulch to stop soil splash, and apply copper in wet spells. Avoid working among wet plants.
Chemical Treatment
Chlorothalonil or azoxystrobin on a protectant schedule during warm rainy periods.
Prevention
Use clean seed, rotate crops, stake for airflow, water at the base, and clear infected debris at season end.
Crops at risk
Related problems
Anthracnose risk by location
Each location has a month-by-month profile computed from the weather archive: how many hours a year actually meet this disease’s thresholds.