Kitchen Garden Forum

This year I planted a variety of spuds as a trial

mum used her saved Desire seed, & I planted Red Duke of York, Accent, Sharpes Express, Valour, & Sarpo Mira.

Desire (own seed), tiny yellowing of blight, lot of slug damage
R.D of york was first to go down with blight (planted between Sarpo Mira & Valour), spuds are looking fine & few losses to slug.
Accent & Sharpes express - tiny yellowing of blight & small slug damage
Valour - massive spuds, only slight yellowing of blight... but literally half of harvest damaged by slugs
Sarpo mira still in the ground & looks ok

Anyone else noticed that R.D of York bad for blight, or Valour for slugs??? The slug damage was particularly sad cause the spuds were amazing, massive & clean - but half wasted!
Thanks for your advice
Skip

RDof York is an old variety (1942)and is not blight resistant, only getting a mark of 3 in Alan Romans' potato book compared with Sarpo mira which gets a mark of 9 and is totally blight resistant.
Sharpes Express is also an old variety and does not have any blight resistance. However both these potatoes are first earlies and should be coming out of the ground before the blight takes hold and they are both great tasting. I grow both. Put ash in your planting hole for slugs.I have never had trouble ever since I started doing that.