Drat I have early blight

[Digeroo]

I seem to have blight already. It has been dry so I had not been expecting it.  The leaves have been dry.

Big blotches so looks like early blight, only affecting half of one row of one variety.   I fed half the row with nettle tea and was very pleased to find that the plants after a few days were almost twice the size of the others, but then suddenly they have got the blight.  I had rather hoped that the nettle would protect them rather that cause the problem.

Does this type of blight affect the tubers?    The Desiree next to them are unaffected.  Should I get rid of them.   They do not appear to be dieing, just look rather unpleasant.

[Digeroo]

[Jayb]

Early blight doesn't usually cause much of a problem, it can look a bit like magnesium deficiency. http://www.gardenorganic.org.uk/factsheets/dc17.php

[strawberry1]

me too, it is already in the tubers, lurking from last year

http://www.allotments4all.co.uk/smf/index.php/topic,75981.0.html

my gut feeling is that blight will be devastating again this year

[royforster]

I'm in S W France and we've had a wet and cold spring. I have just had to burn quite a few of my tomato plants which have the stems very badly affected. Never had blight so early - trying to save the rest with Bordeaux mixture. It seems the spuds haven't been infected ... fingers crossed.

[Jayb]

I'm in S W France and we've had a wet and cold spring. I have just had to burn quite a few of my tomato plants which have the stems very badly affected. Never had blight so early - trying to save the rest with Bordeaux mixture. It seems the spuds haven't been infected ... fingers crossed.

Sorry to read about your tomato plants, I've had blight here the last few years, not good.


A little info for those who are new to blight. There are two different types of blight which can infect potatoes and tomatoes, Early Blight - Alternaria solani, and Late Blight - Phytophthora infestans.
Early blight is not too much of a problem whereas Late Blight is devastating. Conditions need to be right for L. Blight to infect crops and if you sign up on this site http://www.blightwatch.co.uk/content/bw-Smith.asp they will send you alerts when conditions are right for L. Blight . Also useful is the Potato council's blight map http://www.potato.org.uk/node/910

[Digeroo]

The blotches on the early blight are much bigger and are singular patches.  It spreads much slower than the late blight.  With late blight the plants rarely survive more than a few days.

We have not had a notified smith period here yet.  It has been very dry.  Friday was the first real rain in weeks.   

I had been very careful to keep water off the leaves.

[strawberry1]

I got a lot of nice early spuds out of the ground, having seen 1/7 of the healthy looking haulms suddenly tumble. A couple of the haulm bases were slimey and the tubers were still ok but smaller. Three plants had slimey rotten tubers and on prepping in the kitchen, I found another 3 tubers with slimey areas starting and 2 with black slime inside to out, like hollow areas spreading outwards. I have seen it before in shop bought spuds and that is def blight

Anyway I wasn`t taking any chances and all are out now, they were all lady christl. Neighbours have lost a few maincrop, others still look good. Time will tell but fingers crossed for uk spuds this year

[galina]

This is very early indeed for blight - so sorry to read about this.   

[Digeroo]

Not heard of other blight attacks yet.  There is also potato black leg

http://apps.rhs.org.uk/advicesearch/profile.aspx?pid=223

We have only had two smith period days in the whole of June.  Not only been too wet but too cold at night. Last year by this time we had already had three full smith periods ie two consecutive full wet days.  Things really got wet in July.

Dug up one of my potato plants and was surprised to find a reasonable handful of spuds.

[MervF]

When I looked at my rows of potatoes (Sarpo Mira and Desiree) last night, I thought I had blight.  I sent some photos to a friend who suggested I had Blackleg.   I went over this morning and as far as I know, it is Blackleg.   It has only affected 4 plants which I have removed and destroyed but I do know of 2 others on the same site who have the same thing.   I thought Sarpo Mira had a high resistance to this infection.

[manicscousers]

We've had blackleg in charlotte, 4 plants affected so far this year. Seed bought from Barton Grange garden centre 

[strawberry1]

Its a pity re the sarpo, so they aren`t the be all and end all

http://varieties.potato.org.uk/varietyindex.php%20%20?page_no=9

[Pescador]

Or it isn't Blight but one of the many other potato diseases

[Digeroo]

Well I made a big mistake. 

I covered some of the affected plants to keep them dry when it rained and stop the early blight fungus being washed down into the soil.   Those under the covers look very  sorry for themselves and have basically shrivelled up.  All their leaves became infected they are all brown and shrivelled.

Those outside the covers have sprouted new growth and the lower leaves which were badly infected have been attached and eaten by the slugs and the plants now look quite good covered in new green leaves. 

The other variety which had a few random spots have also been cleaned up by the slugs and are fine.

So next time I have early blight I shall water them and go slug hunting.