This disease damages the crops in the United States, Australia, India, China, Canada, the Philippines, and other countries where tomatoes grow.Įarly blight of the tomato, the most destructive of these diseases, is a serious concern during the breeding phase. The most common fungal disease of the orchids is early blight tomato. Because it is linked to the poisonous belladonna and deadly nightshade, tomatoes were once cultivated as ornamental plants in France and northern Europe and considered with suspicion as a food source. This was particularly the case in Spain and Italy. Early in the 16th century, the Spanish appear to have been the first European nation to use the tomato as a food. The wild species presumably originated in Peru or Ecuador in the Andes Mountains of South America. Tomatoes are believed to have been domesticated in pre-Columbian Mexico, from which they derive their name.