Potato Blight

Yorky · Posted: Tue Jun 23, 2009 10:46 pm Post subject: Potato Blight

I noticed brown speckles on my potato leaves so I harvested the containers. A couple of the potatoes were affected by blight but the rest don't seem to be. They do have little white speckles on though.

Can anyone advise on what to do with the foliage and compost?

Also, the crop yield was small again with only 4kg from nine seed potatoes. They were sown 97 days ago and had flowered. They were watered well weekly and fed with worm castings liquid weekly after the first month.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Belfast · Posted: Wed Jun 24, 2009 11:47 pm Post subject:

Potato blight, how to treat Phytophthora infestans.
http://www.gardenplansireland.com/forum/about1313.html

Yorky · Posted: Fri Jun 26, 2009 3:09 pm Post subject:

It appears that it may have been a nutrient dificiency or overwatering and not blight after all. In light of this, do I need to harvest the others at this stage? They were sown 100 days ago today and they've flowered.The ones I did harvest had lots of 'marble' sized potatoes on the stems so should I leave them for another month or two?

michael brenock · Posted: Fri Jun 26, 2009 4:10 pm Post subject:

without seeing your potatoes or stalks it is hard to make a diagnosis. What did the blight look like on the potatoes? were the potatoes left short of water/ was it good fertile soil, were they fed with manure and compost. if the stalks are a light colour then they are probably short of Nitrogen. Water shortage can show similar symptoms. Light sandy soils run short of Nitrogen and water faster than other soils.
michael brenock Horticultural adviser (retired)

Liparis · Posted: Mon Jul 06, 2009 11:47 am Post subject:

Your original seed potato has done it's job, it's life cycle is finished. It's quite normal for it to rot, although on ocassions they don't. If the potatoes your lifting aren't showing signs of blight then it's possibly a nutrient problem. try a general fertiliser like Phostrogen, that will get ito them quicker, or a granular like growmore.
Bill.

ian · Posted: Sun Jul 12, 2009 10:56 pm Post subject:

i noticed these spots on the earlies and immediately took all earlies up the main crop remain unaffected even though they were growing side by side, better to be safe i thought [/img] i am away on hols since taking them up, so cannot say if others remain unaffected still. it was very disappointing as spuds were only a few weeks away from being finished off nicely, instead i got 4 stone of marbles!
ah well next year new location new varieties
these were rocket and sharpes express