Blight & more blight

[fitzsie]

Had a real look at my King Eddies this evening and found what I believe are signs of blight on the leaves , I've never seen it before so having to compare with photos. On closer inspection I noticed that most of the upper leaves look healthy with a few spots but the lower leaves have shrivelled up.
Not taking any chances I have cut all the stems down and bagged them for disposal.
When should I dig up the potatoes? I had a little rummage at the end of the row and found one clean potato so with the warm weather tomorrow is it worth digging them up now and cutting any losses?
Any comments would be of a help....... :-[

[fitzsie]

[ksia]

Poor you, our potatoes have blight too so I understand.

I believe wisdom says to leave them 2 weeks before digging up to be sure no blight spores are still around. WHy I'm not sure, for storage issues or just the issue of spreading blight around the garden?

But to be honest I'm not sure I've always done that (this year I am, but that's due to other gardening priorites!) and I know how tempting it is to get them up while the weather is fine and dry :)

[Ru1]

It's best to leave them for 10-14 days.  However, with my first earlys, I dug the potatoes up as soon as blight was seen, as they may have rotted off due to standing water.

With the warmer weather here, I'd give them a minimum of 10 days before you dig them up

[Jayb]

I think the two weeks is to give a chance for the blight spores to dissipate so hopefully when you lift your potatoes they are then not infected and then rot in store. No need to wait if you want to lift some to eat straight away.

[antipodes]

Ah I didn't know this! I will have to lift my spuds before my holidays maybe. We still have only eaten half of our earlies! I dunno what I am going to do with them all! The crop has been very prolific despite the blight (the earlies had already died off when the blight struck).

[Jayb]

Depending on what variety of earlies you grew, they will probably store well enough for a short period, which should give you a chance to eat them  :) If you don't have much of a slug problem can they stay in the ground for a little while, if you are short of room to store?

[fitzsie]

The 14 days makes sense. I will now have to keep an eye on two of my tomato plants, first time growing Marmande and the green tomatoes have only just started to grow....................
Thxs for everyones comments

[Jayb]

If your tomatoes are movable get them up wind of your potatoes, it might help. Blight spores have an incubation period of about 3-5 days once they have landed on a leaf/stem. Some folk use  a spray as a preventative for blight http://www.jbaseedpotatoes.co.uk/blight-spray, or Bordeaux mixture although this is being withdrawn at the end of 2013. But I guess not everyone wants to use chemicals on their crops.

[electric landlady]

If it's just the lower leaves...it might not be blight. It could just be the leaves dying back naturally. My experience of blight is that it attacks the whole plant, upper leaves as well as lower.

Don't want to stop you from sorting it if it is blight, but maybe things are not as bad as you think!

[fitzsie]

*HI*.......  on close examination the tomatoes in the hanging basket has blight, and they are standing right next to my little greenhouse which has the two big plants. The plant was full of little tomatoes just waiting to change colour I  even have an outdoor tomato plant underneath it which is currently showing untouched.  Just a waiting game now..............
I do have a tomato plant my brother gave me which is a Cherry Cascade and currently sitting in my porch. It is completely full of flowers & tiny tomatoes so I think they are going to be the only ones to survive. I actually think I may have too many flowers on the plant and am wondering whther to remove or will continually feeding survice?



To Electric Landlady - that's what I thought but when I first looked at them but when I examined the leaves I then found most of them had the spots and now that I've seen them on the tomatoes................sigh

[kippers garden]

I noticed today that my tomatoes have succumbed to blight :'(

[artichoke]

I noticed blight on my potatoes about 10 days ago, but with huge family staying for 10 days could not do anything about it (though I did force them to dig up enough Charlottes to feed them during their stay).

Went back today to find all haulms withered, ground like concrete, every plant I dug had small (but healthy) set of potatoes. Forty minutes of heavy struggle filled a smallish plastic bag. It is a terrible year. I am used to filling garage with huge paper bags of potatoes to last the winter and part of the spring, but not this year.

[cornykev]

First time we've had blight on our spuds on the lottie in 7 years
All earlies were dug and eaten before blight, another good reason to plant extra early
All tommies wiped out on site, even the Italians who spray vigorously
That's why I grow tommies at home, watching them closely every day.   ::)

[strawberry1]

I have large crops of tomatoes at home and am watching like a hawk, removing any as soon as they get orange, to finish off (successfully) indoors. I would have liked to have left them  but am paranoid this year. I am very happy with the yield this year so stopped all at 4 trusses and over time removed some leaves. The toms are big so I removed all bar two leaves yesterday, after discovering a touch of blight on an outdoors one (ferline!!). 

So far so good as removing ripening toms seems to set the others off

[kippers garden]

I try and catch tomato blight really early and then I strip my tomatoes and ripen them on the windowsill.  Most tomatoes are ok then, though the odd one is not caught early enough.

By the way, if your tomato plant has bad blight but the tomatoes are still green without any blight showing on them, they can still be used in cooking i.e green tomato chutney

I posted some pictures of the blight on my tomato plants and some information on tomato blight , (which may help someone ).  The link is below:

http://notjustgreenfingers.wordpress.com/category/gardening-pests-and-diseases/

(it's half way down the page)

[KittyKatt]

Tomatoes are the only crop I spray, as the years I didn't spray, I didnt get a crop. Here in the southwest the blight is very bad, and I haven't found Bordeaux mixture to be very effective. Instead I use Westland's Plant Rescue Fungus Killer, (designed for fruit and veg as well as ornamental plants) diluting it down to the lowest concentration listed, together with inspecting the plants almost every day and removing any leaves that look at all suspect. and so far have had very good results, with no plants showing any signs of blight so far, even outside on the allotment.
CAUTIONARY NOTE: although the makers of Plant rescue say it is ok to use on edible plants, it doesnt include tomatoes in its list, so its possible that some varieties may act adversely to the spray. I don't want to be responsible for anyone's plants dying!!!!
KittyKatt