Topic: First season and I have potato problems

[TonyM]

Hi, am new to the allotment ownership and this forum. Having spent a month or so in the summer clearing the plot have began to plant a few things.

Put five rows of Carlingford potatoes in and after several weeks had plenty of growth and duly earthed them up. Now they are beginning to go over to the dark side - my internet research suggests it could be late blight, picture taken today can email if needed.

If I presume it is blight can anyone offer some advice;

1) is it in the soil or just down to bad luck in the area - south coast
2) if the leaves die down now I guess that is it for the plants
3) to make matters worse I dug one up and found a grub digging into the original seed potato
4) do I just leave them and see what I find in another month or so
5) if left should i trim to ground level
6) should I clear the crop now and be done with them
7) I have some broad bean looking worse for wear, is this related or just rust and not isolated

Any advice appreciated.
TonyM

[jennym]

It's a bit late to expect potatoes, I normally put in Apr/May - if you have no tubers and you have blight, you won't get any now. It is usual to cut down affected plants and leave potatoes for a couple of weeks before digging up. You will get wireworms in potatoes on land that hasn't been cultivated much - this will naturally decrease year by year. Blight seems to be primarily airborne, however I'd remove them from the soil, next year practise rotation - plant in different places each year. Most areas get blight, I dig my potatoes mid August normally to avoid it, as it hits us end Aug/early Sept.
Broad beans - different disease, not related. I sow mine about now, leave to overwinter, and crop about April.

[daveandtara]

hi,
this is my 1st season also and like you, i have lost a potato crop to blight!
mine were 'nicolas' planted to enjoy at xmas time.
following the advice i have found in A4A (do a search for blight and loads of info comes up) i have cut foilage down to ground level and will dig up what spuds there are after ten days have passed.
i believe that blight occurs during periods of mild wet weather (exactly like we've had recently) and that once you've got it it can hang around in stray tubers, foilage and roots that remain slowly decomposing and which end up as part of the soil. therefore, it is best not to plant taters or toms in that area next year.
for what it's worth i planted half my spuds on the other side of my plot and they are as yet unscathed!
good luck, if you dig about a bit you may find you have a crop of sorts!
Tara xxx

[john_miller]

Put five rows of Carlingford potatoes in and after several weeks had plenty of growth and duly earthed them up. Now they are beginning to go over to the dark side - my internet research suggests it could be late blight, picture taken today can email if needed.
If I presume it is blight can anyone offer some advice

I would suspect at this time of year potato foliage is more likely to be suffering frost or cold damage than blight. Unless the climate in the U.K. has changed significantly more than I realised since I left!

[redimp]

We have had a very mild and wet Autumn so far - no frosts in Lincolnshire as yet.

[daveandtara]

really warm and summery here in london too, Redclanger!
in fact, thursday was over 21 degrees, a new record apparently!
also, some of my taters have light brown soft patches on them which look exactly like those in my 'veg expert' book under blight.

[TonyM]

Thanks for the comments, spoke to a fellow plot holder with 'years' of experience who was growing the same Christmas potatoes as me. His have gone over to leave nothing but a few stems. He doesn't think it was blight from his knowledge of the plots and usual timings.

Have earthed them up and will wait a month before digging - nothing ventured nothing gained!!!

TonyM

[john_miller]

Cold temperatures, not necessarily frosty, will promote (or supress the production of other pigments) the production of anthocyanin (responsible for blue/purple shades) in many plants. This could also explain the darkening of the leaves that Tony has noticed.
We haven't had a frost here yet either (at least a month after "normal"), only a couple of close calls, so that many plants have turned some shade of black or purple. This mornings forecast was finally predicting a hard frost for tomorrow but even that has now changed- after I cut down a beautiful 2m tall Celosia, still flowering heavily, and dug up some very purple leafed, formerly green, Pelargoniums.

[delboy]

Planted Carlingfords and Maris Peer for Xmas spuds. Carlingfords' haulms all went black and manky, but the potatoes in the ground are grrreat, so I've put straw over the ground and them and we'll see...

Maris Peer are 15m away but although some haulms are black, most are still green, if falling over..

Am not convinced it's blight, but what do I know. As long as the potatoes stay ok I care little for the haulms, but they aren't going on my compost heap!

[Lily]

I too have had same problem with Christmas potatoes.  Leaves gone black but don't think it's blight.  The tubers look great though.  Have covered over with cloche in case it could be a touch of frost.  I will leave the plants in the ground and just monitor. We learn when things like this happen don't we, it would be very boring if everything grew without it's problems. 

Lily

[john_miller]

This mornings forecast was finally predicting a hard frost for tomorrow but even that has now changed

For those who track such things: the morning forecast was correct. It was -3C at 6 a.m. yesterday morning. Coming your way in about a week, Tim?

[TonyM]

An update, have lifted the crop to find enough potatoes for a couple of meals - from very small to small. Looks to have started out ok when growing and then went over.

Some of the original seed potatoes had a worm or two inside - wireworm I think

The others were just rotten, almost like a liquid inside of raw egg texture.Any advice - is this just damp or would it be an insect / disease issue or poor quality seeds?

Any advice?

Thanks
TonyM

[grassroots]

HI Tony i had the same idea Xmas spuds and just pulled mine, more or less the same as you, but mice eating just the same . The wireworm may be slugs?

[Lily]

I'm off to look at my Xmas potatoes this morning.  I'll let you know the results later.  All the leaves died off a few weeks ago, and we looked at the tubers after another week and they were small but fine.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Lily

[Lily]

We dug up the Xmas potatoes this morning and I have some Good News and some Bad News. 

The Good News is that, all the potatoes we dug up were very good and clean, not a mark on them.  They were small but looked edible.

Now for the bad news. Only two plants produced spuds.  We planted around 10 plants.  So what happened to the rest ?

I know the greenery started to die off before it produced flowers. Could it have been Blight, I wonder.  Anyway, We won't be bothering next season, will just stick to the usual New and Main crop.  It was worth a try though.

Lily  :(

[grassroots]

Hi Lily sorry to see that you did not get much for all your hard work.I got about 20 Kg from about 20-30 plants