Topic: Potatoes & Sulphuric Acid

[Multiveg]

On Radio 4, You & Yours on Tuesday had an article on potatoes:

The UK and Ireland are the only EU countries that allow potato producers to spray sulphuric acid on their crops and there are calls for the practice to be banned. The acid - at 77% strength - is used to burn off the foliage before harvesting and 11,000 tons of it is supplied to the farming industry every year.

[aquilegia]

 :o

[philcooper]

This is standard practice in convential farming for potatoes.

It gets rid of the haulm which would otherwise clog up the harvesting machinery.

Then when it's harvested they use chemicalk sprout inhibitors to prolong the life.

Luckily we gardeners don't have to buy spuds

[aquilegia]

Luckily we gardeners don't have to buy spuds

some of us do (this is my first year of growing them!) occassionally (maybe 10 times a year!) I shall definitely be sticking to organic ones from now onwards.

[Moggle]

Yuuuuuuck  :-X
Considering that I almost live on spuds, and I'll only get a couple of meals worth from my containers in the summer, I'd better think about organic too  :-\

[Palustris]

It is even worse when the potato fields are all around you, believe me the smell of it is enough to make even an old Widnesian wheeze. (And beleive me that takes some doing).

[Hot Chilli Pepper]

You would think that we had the technology these days to create a harvesting machine that could cope with the haulm and effectively separate it from the spud. There seem to be more complex bits of machinery in the world.

I suppose one would then need to factor in the cost of replacing all the current machinery, but I find the thought of spuds routinely washed in sulphuric acid completely revolting. Especially given the amount we eat in our household.

Yeeuukk!

[tim]

- and Google has the nerve to advertise 'acid tanks' in the ad line above!!

'Washed potatoes'?? You haven't seen our organic spuds from Devon. I keep meaning to save the soil as potting compost!!  Lucky they don't charge by weight. = Tim

[Doris_Pinks]

YEACH! unbelievable that we still do this! Might be eyeing up the organic potatoes from now one, wish I could afford them :'(  I just cannot produce enough tatties on my plot to sustain us for the year, which is a shame.

[kenkew]

I'm restricted to using just a third of my plot for potatoes. (Sensible rule really.) So I 'borrowed' a bit from my father-in-law's plot and this morning put in 3 kilo of main crop.
Sulphuric acid on human produce?? Shish!

[kingkano]

What do the other EU countries do, and why cant we just do the same  ::)

I didnt realise this either, definitely be avoiding shop spuds for a bit till I forget this tidbit (might not happen tho!).

[philcooper]

There are lots of other chemicals that are allowed or they can be cut off.

The haulms are only really an issue when large and complex machinery is used. So the problem does exist in countries where a large amount of farming is on a smaller scale

[john_miller]

Which other chemicals, Phil? This was new to me, I hand remove mine, being 'small', so I did some googling. The only other chemical I could find mentioned was diquat, a contact herbicide. Given the choice between sulphuric acid (which will break down into hydrogen, oxygen and sulphur) and diquat I think I would take my chances with washed out and very dilute H₂SO₄ anyday. To clarify something- the potatoes are not washed in sulphuric acid, apparently, if the haulm is dense enough, it requires two applications just to penetrate to the lower foliage.
  My uncles used to flail their potato haulms as they were large enough producers. It always struck me as very wasteful of fuel as the 'flailer' was mounted on the pto shaft of their tractor and could only do one row at a time. I'm not advocating sulphuric acid but I would question whether the alternatives are neccessarily preferable.