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common scab on pots and beet

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minerva:
All my potatoes were infected with scab this year, they were planted in three totally seperate locations but still became infected, and my beetroot as well, they are still edible and taste good, but I would like to avoid this problem next year?  someone said it could be Boron defeciency but when I looked around I cann't seem to find any more info on this and how to increase the boron in the soil, infact i had not even heard of it before.  can anyone help me with this
sam

Mrs Ava:
Scab on beetroots  :o  I dispair!! I am begining to think we need a first aid section on this site, with a list of symptoms, diagnosis's's's and  cures.  I didn't realise there were so many pests and diseases covering virtually everything I could ever want to grow!  
So....scab....doesn't actually affect the edibility (is that a word!?!) of the root?  What does it do to the plant?  And how would I recognise it?  :-/

minerva:
well I think its scab!  the beets are covered in scabby lumps that are slightly darker just like the potatoes, thought they are only skin deep, I should have taken a photo but they are now all pickled in jars awaiting Christmas delivery up to family in cheshire, (They just love my home made christmas prezzies!!!??) :-/

Hugh_Jones:
Potato scab is a bacterial disease, and its appearance is usually the result of lime in the soil, or overdry soil while the tubers are growing - a definite possibility last summer.  While you may indeed have a boron deficiency in your soil, this would not normally manifest itself in the form of scab; the usual early indications of boron deficiency are a stunting and deformation of the stems and foliage to the point where growing points may die out and stems die off (and no way could this be mistaken for potato blight).  Oddly enough, one of the main causes of boron deficiency is high alkalinity in the soil, and this would almost certainly be remedied by a reduction in the pH level.

I would suggest, therefore, that you do a pH test on your soil (in several places) to see whether the cause can be alkalinity (never lime before potatoes), as well as deciding whether the soil could have become overdry at the critical time.

I regret to say that I have never heard of scab on beetroot - neither have any of my reference books - so I can only say (as I did re potato scab) that boron deficiency would be unlikely to manifest itself in this fashion.

Palefire:
My potatoes had a mild smattering of scab this year and it was my first year of growing them. It seems from your description that the culprit was the incredibly dry summer, especially as the soil was rather dry around the tubers when I lifted them.

Another learning curve journeyed by myself this year was that it does have an effect whether you get your spuds in at the right time, too. There was a four week gap in the timing of my Cara, due to lack of time in the garden, and the second set only yielded as much between them as the first set did per plant!

All part of the fun.

Love, Palefire

xxx

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