Topic: Volunteer potatoes

[caroline7758]

I never seem to manage to clear my potato beds properly and end up with volunteers coming up between the next crop. Is it enough to hoe the tops off or should I dig them up, which is difficult without disturbing the small new plants?

[Obelixx]

Keep hoeing and they'll eventually give up from lack of food supply to the roots.

[Palustris]

Why bother? We let them grow and harvest them earlier than the planted ones.

[Plot 18]

I've always understood that they can carry disease over from one year to the next, so best to get rid of them.

[Tee Gee]

I've always  understood that they can carry disease over from one year to the next, so best to get rid of them.

Yes they can carry disease but it is not written in stone that they will!

If your plot is prone to disease then there is a greater possibility but if you practice a good hygiene regime then more often or not you should be OK.

[Obelixx]

I did always let volunteers grow in my patch except under the beetroot.  Bit disruptive there.

[johhnyco15]

I never seem to manage to clear my potato beds properly and end up with volunteers coming up between the next crop. Is it enough to hoe the tops off or should I dig them up, which is difficult without disturbing the small new plants?

thats one reason i grow mine in tubs nothing worse a nice neat line of lettuce then a thug of  spud rears its ugly head

[Silverleaf]

I have to admit to digging out disruptive spud volunteers and moving them to a spot that hasn't had potatoes in it for a few years, and letting them grow on.

It's like free plants!

Sure, it's possible that disease will build up, but I don't think it's as likely as the seed companies would have you believe! After all, it's in their interest to sell you fresh tubers every year...

[Plot 18]

If you follow Blightwatch you will see that most blight outbreaks start on/around outgrade piles (last year's potatoes that didn't make the grade)

Potato Late Blight
 Late blight in potatoes is the key foliar disease to affect potato crops in Scotland. Potato blight is caused by a fungus (Phytophthora infestans). The main source of the disease are potato dumps (areas where diseased potatoes from previous years have been left).
............. Other sources included infected seed and potato volunteers. To date, soil borne infection is not known to occur in the UK.

https://www.sruc.ac.uk/directory_record/3189/potatoes

So I'd rather not be responsible for starting it on my local allotment site, that's all.

[brownthumb2]

 I've done both and I think if your own spuds  This ones parent as it were  was free from blight and disease  last year there`s no harm in saving them as a free bee  But it is annoying having them  appear in a nice straight line of other vege

[Digeroo]

Four first year on site we had blight and it started in a potato bed from bought seed potatoes. 

[brownthumb2]

 I am right in saying blight spores only survive in living tissue of their selected host and not on the green house glass , pots or  staging etc

[Beersmith]

I have always tried to remove "self sets" to minimise the risk of blight. However, despite all the things I have read about blight and it's sources, ways to prevent it, etc, etc, it's occurrence on my plot and on neighbouring plots does not seem to be an issue of hygiene and cleanliness.

If anything it seems weather related. Wet weather on its own - no. Dry weather- no. Hot or cold, in isolation, not a trigger. Several days of warm humid weather and it is pretty much guaranteed to appear.

I have no Idea where it comes from but it seems to me it is very widespread but requires certain conditions to get going so some years it is just not an issue.  Some years it is almost unavoidable whatever you do. I do not grow a lot of spuds, a few first earlies and a few second earlies but it annoys the hell out of me when blight hits my tomatoes.

[Silverleaf]

If you follow Blightwatch you will see that most blight outbreaks start on/around outgrade piles (last year's potatoes that didn't make the grade)

Potato Late Blight
 Late blight in potatoes is the key foliar disease to affect potato crops in Scotland. Potato blight is caused by a fungus (Phytophthora infestans). The main source of the disease are potato dumps (areas where diseased potatoes from previous years have been left).
............. Other sources included infected seed and potato volunteers. To date, soil borne infection is not known to occur in the UK.

https://www.sruc.ac.uk/directory_record/3189/potatoes

So I'd rather not be responsible for starting it on my local allotment site, that's all.

Fair enough. I'm growing in a garden and not an allotment and I don't know of anyone nearby growing potatoes or tomatoes, so I'm unlikely to infect anyone else.

I've been allowing volunteers to grow and replanting tubers from my own varieties for a few years and had no problems at all.

[ancellsfarmer]

Believe blight spores travel in thermally uplifted air from upwind, like sahara dust and hay fever pollens. Those who suffer birch pollen allergy should be pleased and surprised that its likely come from the forests of Latvia,not their local park.

[ACE]

I've just cleared all of mine, I have plenty of this years growing elsewhere and they are only robbing the goodness I need for other crops. I did get a nice crop of baby spuds for a meal though.

[Tee Gee]

Believe blight spores travel in thermally uplifted air from upwind, like sahara dust and hay fever pollens.

I agree!

Many years ago I was on my plot very early in the morning and there was mist hovering over the plot and it was moving in an undulating fashion although I would have swore there was no wind.

So it must have been thermal currents acting on the cool soil that was causing this.

What I did notice that as it moved down the plot was; some plots were covered in mist and with others the cloud was some way above it. My theory was this is how some plots can be affected by airborne disease and other are not.

My same thought apply to carrot fly in so much as it is said that they only fly at around 18" high yet people who have erected windbreaks still get carrot fly....why?

Could it be as they are flying past a carrot bed a thermal current wafts them over the barrier?