full smith period

[gowerbass come gardener]

just had an email from blightwatch.

full smith period expected

[oldherbaceous]

Not all ready.

Thanks for putting the warning on the forum g.c.g.

[Catherine]

Okay what does that mean. Full Smith Period. How can you tell if you are going to get blight on your potatoes and if you can how can you prevent it? I just shove them in the ground and hope for the best.

[Catherine]

Just found out what full smith period is. Sorry for my ignorance and now reading up on it.

[Chantal]

I was equally baffled but have also read up, for anyone else who wishes to be enlighted, go to

http://www.blightwatch.co.uk/content/bw-Smith.asp

[Compo]

Hmmmm seems to do with the fact that the weather and the humidity etc, are ripe for blight to flourish, particularly the humidity of late.

I guess one of the secrets might be to earth up, as much as possible which seems to help at this early stage of the potato season. I read on the link above that the leaves need to be wet, so covering them with soil might help. Some peopleon my plots sprayed many times with bordeaux mixture last time and to no avail. I think a lot of it is down to good fortune and of course the direction of the wind in damp warm weather.

[Johnboy]

Being that the contractors only finished planting the last of the spuds here yesterday afternoon I guess the we will miss at least the first bout of blight. These spuds are due for harvesting the first week in October. At 500ft somehow last time they were on this patch (seven years) they missed blight altogether but those at a lower altitude last year suffered about a 25% loss from flood and another 25% from blight. These spuds will not break the surface until the end of the first week in June. They are never irrigated and yet they realise 20 tons to the acre.
A new contractor who has a completely different method of preparation and they have planted on tighter margins, finishing off with the rows 33" apart as opposed to 36" and 14" down the row as opposed to 15". Now you may not think that this would make that much difference but just on the one field (which is 22 acres) this means an extra 18 rows and should give a increase yield of at least 4 tons to the acre if not more. It will be interesting to see if this is the case at harvest time.
JB.

[Cider Boys]

Some believe that the potato will become more important as a staple food across the world and I hope that it does. This will ensure that research is concentrated in producing a blight resistant potato that can keep up with the subtle changes in the blight's development. Perhaps a GM potato?

Until then spray and hope.

Barney

[gowerbass come gardener]

how many of you use a spray and are any organic or is that just being silly
?

[Compo]

Hi Gowerbass, all you can use is Bordeaux Mixture I believe, not organic though as far as I am aware. This year I have planted Sarpo Mira supposedly blight resistant, we will see eh?

[Johnboy]

Hi Compo,
Although it is a Copper preparation Bordeaux Mixture is the only spray allowable under Organic Accreditation. The other man made spray will not impart copper into the crop like BM, is more effective than BM but is not allowable under Organic Accreditation.
So the safer product is not allowed! This is why Organic growers were in so much trouble last year.
This is why I am at odds with the the organic regime pursued in this country as half the time it doesn't make sense. There are several such anomalies.
The only reason the contractor here lost 25% of his crop to blight last year was because they simply could not get round to spray in time. Had they not sprayed their loss would have been total.
JB.

[Compo]

Having acknowledged what you say, and I agreed that some of the regulations are utter nonsense, is it worth using Bordeaux mixture at the time of threatened blight JB? How effective can it be?

[Johnboy]

Hi Compo,
The trouble with BM is that it must be applied before the blight exists so when a blight warning is given you must apply it whether it's needed or not.
This can lead to the over application of copper to the soil and the copper is taken up by the new coming crop. They will not give accreditation to the treatment which treat the foliage only. This to me is rejecting any new chemical out of hand irrespective of what it does.
This is called dogma and sadly dogma rules the Organic world.
Of course this leads to the question; are Organic Potatoes more of a hazard to health than conventionally produced potatoes?
JB.

[Cider Boys]

As I have said before, in my view there is no such thing as a commercial organic potato.

It is an ongoing problem for the SA due to the irony that they permit a nasty chemical when it comes to the potato. They would get more respect from me (only a little bit though) if they treated potatoes like the other organic crops they boast about as having no nasty chemicals applied.

Any case, where have all the organic zealots gone?

Looks as though pragmatism is winning JB.

Barney

[pongeroon]

We grew Sarpo Mira last year and they had no sign of blight at all. They stored well and we are still eating them. They make a very gluey mash, (unless I'm doing something wrong) but we have got used to it now, and I rather like it like that. A lot of them were very small though.

Our first earlies are Lady Christl, and they didn't get blight either, and taste lovely.