what does potato blight look like?

[gwynnethmary]

Today I pulled up all of my Anya potatoes as the leaves were showing  brown spots.  The other varieties, grown in the same bed (Charlotte, Kestrel, Nicola, Nadine) all look OK, as do those planted in tubs further up the plot.  Have I over-reacted?

[gwynnethmary]

[strawberry1]

some of mine are showing brown spots, like freckles so I have foliar fed with epsom salts as I think the constant rain has leached the soil. I also noticed similar brown spots on broad beans so I went around spraying several beds. Did this two days ago and already yesterday there was an improvement and plants are looking brighter. I shall be keeping a close eye of course but am ready to re-spray in a week or two. I really don`t think that they were blighted

[Digeroo]

I do not think you can mistake the dreaded blight when it strikes.  It is a here today gone tomorrow sort of attack.  My experience would be that if you are not sure than it is not blight.   Early blight, black leg and ant attacks have got me excited in the past.

[Jayb]

Late blight in the early stages,
starting to increase,
spreading into the stem.

[gwynnethmary]

Thank you!  The pictures are very helpful- mine are more like brown freckles rather than splodges.  I think I may have jumped too quickly to pull them out.  Well, I'll be back there in the morning, and if it is blight, I guess there'll be more to see in the other potatoes.

[Jayb]

mine are more like brown freckles rather than splodges.

Brown freckles could be early blight (which is different from late blight) and most pots go on to produce a crop. Or perhaps a sign of needing a feed or mineral imbalance?

Perhaps your Anya could have been left but if it is Late blight the helms were best removed LB spreads so fast, especially with the weather we have been having  :(. If LB it's apparently best to leave any tubers in the ground for a couple of weeks for the spores on the soil surface to die off. Unless you want to eat the spuds straight away.

[Hazelb]

Those are good pictures.

I do remember from the blight attack about 5 years ago, that it happens very quickly ( a mater of days, or a week ) and the leaves seem to go mouldy, rather than have black spots on them. Then the stalks just collapse.

The tomatoes also got blight at the same time, I think that is fairly typical as well.



....so sorry to say I think you might have over reacted. My spuds have has some small black spots on their leaves for a few weeks...and it's defo not blight!

[antipodes]

gwynnethmary, I too suspected blight on my spuds but it has turned out that they are just dying back. All the rain seems to have affected the season, it seems to me: my second earlies are also yellowing with brownish patches but to my surprise, after digging up one or two to see, the spuds underneath are mostly ready! there were several large ones per plants! I also have been eating the earlies two weeks earlier than usual... 
Look at the stems - they will soon look yucky if it's a disease.

[gwynnethmary]

They do look pretty healthy apart from a few brown freckles, so think I will wait and see with the rest.