Potato blight

mardatha

I signed up ok Mary but I cant remember what as. I think just as a grower . Agreed re the stress-free bit LOL ! It's putting years on me !

tangojulie

If you think you have blight then I believe it's important to destroy the affected foliage, but NOT to dig up the crop just yet. This is because blight is carried by little spores. To begin with they arrive in the air and attack the leaves. Eventually if you are unlucky they will migrate to the tubers and affect them too. If you dig up the tubers when there are plenty of live spores around, you make it easier for the spores to get to them. If you destroy the foliage and then wait a while (not sure how long but maybe a couple of weeks?) the spores will die for lack of anything living to feed on. Then it's safe to bring the tubers to the surface.

Not sure that this is entirely correct but if Tattieman (fount of knowledge for all things potato) is still around on here I'm sure he'll put me right!

Now off to buy some Dithane.... good luck everyone!

*BigBird*

3 out of the 4 bags of potatoes in my garden seem to have blight I've whipped one lot out completely (fresh potatoes for tea - yum! ), a couple of the potatoes were pock-marked - is that blight? I was expecting them to look black and rotten if they'd been affected

I'll chop off the rest of the foliage and leave the other 2 bags of potatoes in their compost for now.

Strangely though, my rooster potatoes, which are right next to the others, seem completely unaffected. I'll be keeping an eye on them, but is this sheer luck or are they a particularly resistant variety?

Also, can I use the compost as a mulch on my allotment? I was thinking of spreading it on the bed where I have my pumpkin, courgettes and squash. Is it likely to transfer nasty stuff up there if I take it to the allotment? (I don't really want to throw it away as it was fancy miracle gro organic stuff - if it is possible for compost to be "fancy"!:rotfl:)

Primrose

mary-op - I went onto the blightwatch website and in the name of the company or whatever I just signed up as a private grower (or something like that). I'm not sure they are being too specific about the requirements of that information. I signed up last year and didn't in fact remember receiving any warnings even though we did have a little blight in our area, so that may mean either no commercial growers in our post code reported blight, or for some reasons I didn't receive the warnings issued.

Dustykitten

*BigBird* wrote: »

3 out of the 4 bags of potatoes in my garden seem to have blight I've whipped one lot out completely (fresh potatoes for tea - yum! ), a couple of the potatoes were pock-marked - is that blight? I was expecting them to look black and rotten if they'd been affected pots often get scab - looks like a brown raised scab on the skin - scratch it off, pot will be fine. Blight will make the pots black as far as I know

I'll chop off the rest of the foliage and leave the other 2 bags of potatoes in their compost for now.

Strangely though, my rooster potatoes, which are right next to the others, seem completely unaffected. I'll be keeping an eye on them, but is this sheer luck or are they a particularly resistant variety? some varieties are more resistant but like you say keep a daily eye on them

Also, can I use the compost as a mulch on my allotment? I was thinking of spreading it on the bed where I have my pumpkin, courgettes and squash. Is it likely to transfer nasty stuff up there if I take it to the allotment? (I don't really want to throw it away as it was fancy miracle gro organic stuff - if it is possible for compost to be "fancy"!:rotfl:)

yes it may well spread but I doubt the lottie is free from it - don't grown pots or toms in the area next year though