THE TATTIES THREAD 2018

Just out of curiosity, how accurate are the Blight Alerts?

If 8 alerts have been sent out for a certain area, then surely some spuds would have contracted Blight by now? or is this not how it works?

 

I get bombarded with alerts during periods when it's either raining too much for spraying, or whenever I'm off on hols and can't spray, then after a prolonged alert free period, blight strikes without any warning whatsoever.

But to get infected when the conditions are right for it, there must be previosly infected plants releasing spores, the earliest of those will be from overwintering tubers infected the previous year, but it all seems to get a lot worse once they affect new crops and they also start releasing further gazillions of spores.

 

Thanks for the explanation, Scrungee... here's hoping that there aren't any infected plants near me.

 

And commercial growers always blame gardeners for spreading blight! I've even read of some calling for a ban on non-commercial growers being allowed to grow them.

There's all too much of this these days with commercial interest wanting to stop sea anglers from catching fish, gardeners saving seeds, non-commercual growers banned from using weedkillers, etc. Banning non-commetcials from collecting their own fuel will be next on their list.

 

Thanks for the explanation, JWK...it's appreciated.

 

A few of my earlies in 10L pots had a touch of early blight so I harvested the affected ones (Charlottes) today.

(The herbs are for sousing some Mackerel I caught and have taken out a freezer to go with those fresh new potatoes).

 

Charlottes looking good, scrungee.

I was checking over my spuds for Blight this aft, but not quite sure what I'm looking for?

I noticed that most of the inner leaves ( those that don't get much light ) looked like the ones below, all the outer ones in the sunshine look OK.







So was wondering if this was Blight or just down to the fact that these leaves don't get much light?

 

Exactly the same as mine, might have to drag mine off my bonfire for a photo opportunity.

 

Mine seem to be ok, not sprayed yet.

 

So what should I do, is it a case of cutting off all the top growth and leaving the spuds in the buckets for another couple of weeks, or should I just dig the whole lot up and call it a day?

As it happens, it's only the Maris Peer that are affected, the Nicola look fine and I have one bucket of MP growing in between the buckets of Nicolas.

 

This is a pic my neighbours took last season of her Potatoes, didn't come over the fence to mine.

 

Mine looks nothing like the Blight in your picture, John...maybe mine is just in the early stages.

So the question still remains, what should I do?

 

Hi Sheps, I did read somewhere to just cut down/burn, and harvest as usual. I wouldn't take a chance of losing all them lovely new spuds (even if they are small)