Blighted Potato Haulms

[darkbrowneggs]

Hi All, every year I seem to get blight on my potatoes, and as I grow quite a lot I am left with a mass of greenery that I don't want to put on the compost and never seem able to get round to burning as they need to be left to dry and at that time of year it seems it rains all the time.

Last year I took them to the local tip, but it was half a days work at least as the garden is a long way from the car/trailer, then the tip is nearly half and hour away, and it all has to be unloaded yet again

I have a very large tank. If I put the tops in there and covered with water, perhaps with some sort of chemical, would this destroy the blight spores.

Many thanks
Sue

[Johnboy]

Hi Sue,
Any blighted haulm here is bagged up and left to dry out and burnt later on in the year or early the next season.
JB.

[darkbrowneggs]

Hi Sue,
Any blighted haulm here is bagged up and left to dry out and burnt later on in the year or early the next season.
JB.

Interesting - you are also not far from me so have same weather too

Tell me, do you use paper bags or bin liner type, and if the later do you close or leave open. If open do the spores not continue to spread?

I do have a shed I could put them under, but this was only built recently - but I think this idea could be a "runner"

Many thanks
Sue

[Tony Hague]

I have always wondered how to follow the "burn them" advice. To burn them immediately is a bit like trying to burn water. Leave them out to dry, and surely the spores just get spread around. Bag them up, and how do they dry ?

I've been lucky mind; only had blight on potatoes one year (burned the tops wet aided by dry peasticks etc, with a vast cloud of smoke). Strangely, I get it without fail on outdoor tomatoes though.

[darkbrowneggs]

I think half my problem is that I grow potatoes for their taste, and not for their blight resistance. Its rather like those Flyaway carrots - I think the only reason the carrot fly don't attack them is that they don't taste of carrots, at least not the way I think carrots should taste

This year I am trying quite a few new varieties in the hope of hitting on something that will give a good crop before the inevitable blight strikes

I am on a highish hill looking right across the Wye valley to the Brecon Beacons so whether the blight comes in on the wind I don't know. But I was ill a few years ago and the garden was abandoned for around 4 or 5 years, and of course the self sets just carried on growing, so whether I have just got it thoroughly established in my garden now I am not sure.

Also this year I am thinking of spraying early with Bordeaux mix, though its remembering and finding the time to get round to it .

All the best
Sue

[Johnboy]

Hi John.
The bags are tied-up and they then have a fork put through the side and are left out in the burning area in full sunlight unlike making leaf mould which gets put out of the light under the hedge. The haulms may not dry out completely but they are put onto a very hot fire and are gone in a very short span of time. However I now only grow Maris Bard Early spuds and do not get blight as a rule. However I did get Tomato Blight a couple of years ago and I then adopted the same procedure.

Hi Sue,
If you can see the Brecon Beacons you are south of the county as we look towards the Radnor Forest a good deal north of you.
We are about three weeks behind Hereford for most things. For example when the Flowering Cherry Trees are finishing there ours are just beginning to open. As the year progresses the difference seems to decrease. It is really all very strange but I suspect it is to do with the hills around us which give us different light values.
Which Chooks laid the eggs on you avatar? Certainly dark brown!
I actually thought that they were cherries but went up to 200% to see that they are eggs in their cartons. Eyes not so good nowadays I'm afraid.
With the amount of Potatoes grown in your area I'm afraid that blight will prevail and even professional spraying is nowhere near 100% successful.
The host of blight is the potato so if you have any volunteers growing in your garden you should really dig them up and destroy them. Certainly blight comes in on the wind but volunteers could easily be a source of infection.
JB.

[Johnboy]

Hi Sue,
You must think me mad. I have just read you introductory posting and all has become clear!
JB.

[darkbrowneggs]

Hi Johnboy - I guess you have worked out now that I breed English Cuckoo Marans, and those eggs are from some of my girls. They don't always lay them that dark, but sometimes they are even darker

As I say I am quite high here so somethings are a bit later, but I try to give shelter etc where I can, and hasten things on with polytunnel growing

What you have said makes perfect sense, and I now think I know where my endless blight problems are arising

Being a thrifty sort of a person if there is a nice potato plant coming up in a bed I don't need to use I let it come and then dig for early spuds. They always seem so much quicker than my planted ones. And this year I have had loads of new potatoes and lots to give away as well, and I must say they seem to have been even more delicious than ususal this year.

I think this is what is doing it, so I shall just have to harden my heart next year and kill everything

I have just redesigned my crop rotation system to a 5 year one, and after the potatoes, I am going to try fallowing the beds by heaping them with (unseeded and non-perennial) weeds, maybe sprinkled with dolomitic limestone to hasten rotting (I hope) then follow this with peas/beans, which I know like a rich soil and magnesium.

Then Winter greens, then roots, then back to potatoes.

Does that sound good? I had intended to crop the volunteers on the fallow year, but if the foliage was still clear would they still be infected with blight?

All the best and thanks for the interesting reply
Sue

[Johnboy]

Hi Sue,
I am not suggesting that all volunteers carry blight but they have been implicated in several findings over the years. You know "the one that got away."
Here I use Crimson Clover quite a lot and, due to family commitments, never got turned in so there is a very large bed that I shall be taking for seed. Later on this year we will be planting Winter Tares (Vetches) on trial. Both Clover and Tares do not interfere with your rotation whereas Mustard is of the Cabbage family and should be taken into the rotation.
In my rotation system, which I do not strictly adhere to, I would not grow Carrot to Spuds because that is root to root so any pest in the soil after the Carrots may affect the spuds.
Here I am at about 500' and suffer some really late frosts and I suppose you get the same.
I am off to the Three Counties Show this week so I shall be quite close to where you are.
JB.