blight on Sarpo Mira potatoes

[The Mouse]

Hello

I've grown Sarpo Mira for the first time this year, because I thought they were blight resistant.
Guess which are the only potatoes on the plot to have got blight so far

The Sarpo Mira were grown alongside Rooster and Charlotte, and neither of those have been affected. And right next to them, on the next allotment are a lot of tomato plants which still look free of blight, too!

Although I saw the leaves being affected on some of the plants over the last ten days, I didn't think they looked bad enough yet for the blight to have got into the tubers, but I was wrong. I have lifted several partly or completely rotten tubers, and some healthy-looking ones which I had put into a sack only a couple of days ago have now started to rot

Has anyone else had this happen to their Sarpo Mira, or have I just been very unlucky?

[oldherbaceous]

Dear Caz, it sounds to me as if you have been given the wrong seed.

[The Mouse]

Dear OH

I wondered that myself. But now I'm also wondering if the rot could be due to some other disease rather than blight. As I said, there were the tell-tale signs of blight on the leaves, but not bad enough to prepare me for the rotten / rotting tubers.

I'm even starting to wonder if I could have mis-diagnosed the blight on the leaves. Like most people, I've seen plenty of it on other varieties over the last couple of years and when I saw the brown spots/patches appearing I immediately recognised it - or so I thought! What I didn't do was look really carefully to see if it could possibly be anything else, and now I've dug them all up it's too late!!!

Whatever the problem, the overall crop is very large and otherwise very clean, with next to no slug damage, so unless large numbers of the healthy-looking tubers start to rot in store, we will have more than enough to feed the family

[glallotments]

Our Sarpo Mira potatoes are starting to come down with blight although other varieties did suffer first. They do say they are blight resistant not blight free though. I read that they do get blight but as they are strong growers they can grow through the problem although ours are starting to look as though the blight will win.

On our neighbours plot his Golden Wonders were the last to succumb. The RHS say they are particularly susceptible to blight and another website has them as not being susceptible so I guess it is all an inexact science!

[Colin Miles]

I too have grown Sarpo Mira, Rooster and Charlotte. Have only had early blight so far this year and Charlotte seemed particularly susceptible to it, Rooster generally resistant, Sarpo Mira affected more. But with both of the latter some plants have been hardly affected at all, some quite badly. Haven't examined any of the tubers yet.

But as was said, blight resistance doesn't mean that they aren't affected. Sarpo Mira are supposed to be able to continue growing through it.

[glallotments]

So far we have dug:
Belle de Fontenay - the tubers were just about wiped out with blight - a smelly mess
Charlotte - tops blighted but tubers seem Ok and good crop
Juliette - as Charlotte.

Still to harvest Anya, Nicola and Sarpo Mira.

[Stephen]

Caz
I am sorry to hear that news.
I am still at the "early-learning" stage and have suffered blight on the spuds this year. I have realised that by watering with a hose and hand-held spray, I am at least partly responsible for this, so I am going to get some leaky/soaker hose for next yera's crop and run it along each row.

[glallotments]

We haven't watered since about May. If you have had the weather that we have had your watering won't be an issue - the rain and wind would have been the culprits

[glallotments]

Anya tubers were fine as were the Sarpo Mira that we have dug so far. Some are still growing in spite of being a bit affected by the blight. The SM tubers are quite large.

[Monika]

We have now harvested all our potatoes other than Sarpo Mira. They were sown as five tubers each of Rocket, Charlotte and Pink Fir Apple and 20 tubers each of Kestrel, Pentland Dell, Anya, Sante and Sarpo Mira.

And the verdict: none suffered from blight (quite different from last year!) but we are not impressed with the taste of Charlotte and Pentland Dell. Anya seemed smaller than previous years (harvested too early?) and had some odd "rotten" patches which didn't look light blight. Kestrel suffered a lot of slug damage and the cleanest and most even crop so far seems to be Sante!