Main crop potatoes

[annie8]

Was planning to leave my Rudolph potatoes in the ground until end sept. By my calculations they have been in the ground for 21 weeks. But the foliage is getting really yellow and wilting so wondering if I should wait that long. I could cut the plant off and leave in the ground for a few weeks to harden the skins. I took a few from the ground last weekend and they made lovely roasties but the skins did split.

[Mr Bones]

With the tops dying off it sounds like your spuds are ready and won't be growing any bigger, leaving them in the ground shouldn't present a problem unless slugs find them.

[burnie]

As Monty said last night, if you remove the tops and leave them in the ground for a week or two, it hardens the skins which helps with keeping them over the winter. Farmers round here are doing it with some varieties now, I don't grow enough to store, they will be eaten in no time at all.

[4Shoes]

Yes, we sprayed the potatoes with round-up (I jest - it was an acidic product to burn down stalks). They were left a couple weeks to harden up and then lifted. With harvesters, they'll need a good skin. We had tattie pickers, so back breaking work.

We didn't have the same slug problem on the farm or wire worm.

I've just lifted my records here. All stalks are dead and dried up for over a month so most were looking good. But at areas next to grass path, the slugs have got in. On a positive note, they seem to pick single potatoes, leaving most of the others. I'd say I lost 10% to slugs and 10% are going to the seed bin (small or green)

Good news this year, there is no wire worm . The plot has been off grass for 3 years.

I've had a wee look at Charlotte and they are not looking so hot. The end of my Maris peers were also a bit hit and miss.


All best.

Update / Edit.

The Charlette potatoes were not as bad as expected. They have been impacted by the dry spell in July and a few have split. These were the main target for the slugs, so was not such a loss. The skin has really hardened, but for a 2nd early that was to be expected.


All in given the weather this year a reasonable harvest.

[Penellype]

Interesting what you say about the Charlotte. I harvested some the other day and they had really bad scab, to the point where some of them were rotting at one end. I've not had this with Charlotte before.

In general the potatoes have done well this year - I've had some big yields (and some not so big) from my buckets. The latest was 2.6kg Arran Pilot from 2 seed potatoes. That's supposed to be a first early, but the potatoes are huge. They were planted outside in a bucket on 20th February on a bed of fresh horse manure and covered with a plastic sheet. The shoots took 2 months to appear above the compost.

[4Shoes]

Interesting what you say about the Charlotte. I harvested some the other day and they had really bad scab, to the point where some of them were rotting at one end. I've not had this with Charlotte before.

In general the potatoes have done well this year - I've had some big yields (and some not so big) from my buckets. The latest was 2.6kg Arran Pilot from 2 seed potatoes. That's supposed to be a first early, but the potatoes are huge. They were planted outside in a bucket on 20th February on a bed of fresh horse manure and covered with a plastic sheet. The shoots took 2 months to appear above the compost.

Unlikely to be scab that caused the rotting. It is a skin disease and potatoes with scab are unsightly by safe to eat. Just peal. Was there any sign of black leg perhaps. I had a couple of tatties with a major slug party. The whole inside was rotten at one end and running wet

[Penellype]

Definitely not blackleg. The problem is always at the rose end, and its a dry sort of rot that just seems to eat the potato away. The rest of the potato has more normal scab, this is just more extreme.

I've eaten the worst ones as they definitely won't keep, but this one illustrates the problem fairly well:

[4Shoes]

Not seen that before. Mr Google not much help. Comes up with Canker and Warts, but neither looks like your picture. Ho hum.

Is it just the one variety affected. Could be from the seed, in which case, would buy fresh seed next season.

[Penellype]

Yes its just the one variety, although I have ordinary scab on the others. Not all of the Charlotte buckets are affected, just this one (of 4). This particular bucket was one of 2 sitting on fresh horse manure but the other bucket wasn't affected. It could be that just one of the seed potatoes I bought had some sort of disease which wasn't passed to the others in the bag.