Rotting potatoes

[Robert_Brenchley]

I was diugging up the last of the spuds today, and over half of them were rotting, many wiht obvious signs of fungus. They were also sprouting. This is how blight survives from year to year, on diseased potatoes, which last long enough to infect the new crop. The answer is to exterminate accidentals with Dalek-like zeal. They will be producing the spores which will destroy this year's crop if we get a wet spell.

[Robert_Brenchley]

[goodlife]

Were your potatoes bought ones..or your own...?

[kymrob]

what is best way to get rid of rotton potato! burn? dump? we just got new allotment and have dug up some old crops not sure what to compost!

[goodlife]

kymrob...with anything deseased or you are not sure with..burn..or take it with you and bin it..of course it you dig lottie full of stuff ::)well deal with it little and often..
I deal with old crops that would re-grow by putting them into black bin liners and and letting them "cook"...end of summer I have crusty "bisquit" in bottom  of the bag and this will burn much better without too much smoke...I try not to do bonfires during summer months...folks don't get agravated , sometime  they leave their washing on line untill late in the evening... ::)
But most of the tops, part potatoes, you should be able to compost... ;D

[kymrob]

thanks goodlife thats what i thought!  ;D

[Robert_Brenchley]

They were ones I grew last year, when for the third year running we had a massive blight outbreak in early summer. I've never seen anything like it. the point is, everone needs to be extra vigilant about accidentals. If we can get through this year, most of it will be gone.

I compost them. They rot, and once there's no living tissue left, that's the end of the fungus.

[Robert_Brenchley]

I just found the first accidental coming up, with suspicious brown patches on the leaves. It's nowhere near warm enough for it to infect other plants, but it shows they are coming up with blight.

[Mortality]

I compost them. They rot, and once there's no living tissue left, that's the end of the fungus.

Fungus grows and exists in a warm damp environment, it might quite happily survive in a compost bin surely?

[Robert_Brenchley]

Sure, but this one needs living tissue. Once the spud is dead, so is the blight. The only exception to the rule is when sexual reproduction leads to the production of resistant spores which can survive. This is now a possibility in the UK, since the misguided introduction of diseased potatoes from Mexico some years ago brought a second strin to the UK. It hasn't been observed here yet though.