Allotments 4 All
Produce => Pests & Diseases => Topic started by: tim on March 12, 2015, 16:36:36
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All but a few of my CARA were like this. Why me?
And why is there never an animal in them - can they reverse out??
Tim
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Hi Tim
You are a bit of a stranger, nice to see you are still 'flying' about!
I find variety plays a large part in this problem this is why I am a bit selective with my varieties, although it limits my choice a bit!
I haven't found an early that does not succumb to this problem, but I keep on looking, plus I don't grow too many of them
I find that they seem to keep clear of Kestrel & PFA so I use these as my 2nd early & maincrop.
As I see it is it better to have an untouched potato of a lesser flavour, althogh PFA is OK rather than find myself in the situation you find yourself !
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Hi Tim
Your potatoes look light they are suffering tobacco rattle virus and it not caused by a pests.
Check out this link.
http://www.potato.org.uk/gallery/potato-diseases
duke
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I had a similar problem with Marfona last year - every one was like a sieve, plus one stub of (forgotten what) next them, hardly a slug hole in the rest of them. I wish I knew why! The others were Red Robin, Romano, Kestrel, some I've forgotten.
As for the question about reverse gear... I can see philosophers the world over getting a good head of steam up over this! I've often wondered where they all go myself.
Incidentally, agreed with Tee Gee, good to see you around!
Adrian
(cross post - while I can see the similarity to tobacco rattle virus, it looks a lot more like slugs to me)
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tobacco rattle virus
Interesting article that I had heard of spraing which I always associated with brown veining in the potato but not tunnels like those seen in the TRV article.
I thought the tunnels were cased by black keeled slugs, or some such maggot ( nematode as in the article) and there was usually a tell tale hole in the tuber to indicate the problem prior to peeling/cutting the tuber!
But with TRV there does not seem to be any surface holes so how does this 'beastie' get into the potato?
Twenty five years ago I gave up smoking (tobacco) because of the 'rattle' in my chest.
I hope i don't have to give up my 'chips' or mash now. :BangHead: :happy7:
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Yo Tim, long time no see.
Whatever it is, the farmer next to us had to give up on Potatoes altogether because of damage which looked like this. If it is keeled slugs then ,since they live underground, they are very hard to deal with.
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I had awful slug damage on my main crop potatoes for years until last year I decided to do it a different way.
Instead of waiting until late to plant them out I put many rows of Desirée spuds in at the same time as my first earlies - around the end of March/beginning of April and fed them heavily with manure. In the past I'd followed the advice of leaving them in the ground until late August/early September like the old boys say - and each time I'd got blight on the leaves and the potatoes were riddled with slug holes. Last year I harvested them at the end of July and the potatoes didn't have a trace of blight and not a single slug hole either - there was a good yield of big potatoes and not too many tiny ones - enough to store until well after Christmas. The old boys who left theirs in til September had massive slug damage as usual.
I'm definitely trying it again this year to see if it was a freak of last year's weather or whether it is actually a good policy to harvest early.
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Great to hear from you all!
Whatever - I was pretty fazed, because it was to be about my last crop before retiring from gardening due to loss of balance.
As it is, I've decided to soldier on in a limited way with the help of a local handyman, and No 2 Son who is living in No 2 Daughter's cottage next door.
Here's one for the album!!
Tim
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:wave:
It great to hear from you again....and even better news to hear that you are still able and willing to do some gardening. I think we all could do some help from time to time..
That is good one for the album... :icon_thumleft: ....did you peek other side of the door too?
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Oh, YES!!
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Sorry to hear about your spuds problem Tim, but great to see you posting again :wave: :sunny:
Tricia :sunny:
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It's lovely to hear from you again Tim.
I am pleased that you have help in your garden so you can still benefit from home grown produce.
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Hello Tim
It's great to see you still posting :wave:. I've given up on growing potatoes for all of the above reasons and also because they are far too keen on volunteering :BangHead:
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i just dont water mine at all
ive been away from it for 3 years but i never watered mine and got minimal slug damage was told all the watering attracts them to your plants and it worked before so im trying it again this year all mine have been in since late march
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Definitely slug damage I believe Cara are well known as attracting slugs , Bloke on GQT said to offer them easier food ( peelings and green leaves etc ) on top between rows , then go out and collect the b****** at night .
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I find nematode treatment good for underground slugs :icon_thumleft: