Blight Alerts

[Ger-annie-um]

I signed up to Blight Watch several years ago and received email alerts when blight was about. I haven't had any at all this year and wondered why. Have any of you had any notifications of blight in your area or is it that blight isn't about? .................yet!

[burnie]

Nope me neither, which I'm taking as a good thing.

[ameno]

I'm long past the point of alerts.
I've been noticing small patches of blight for two weeks now, which I've been picking off, and today I removed all the top growth from my Charlottes and one whole tomato plant.

It was that hot spell that was the problem, actually. The dew overnight was incredibly thick.

[Bren In Pots]

No alerts here, I've checked the site and there's not much info on there.

[MelanieSW]

That site seems to have stopped working, I haven't had any email by alerts from them since last year either.
But this year I signed up to two systems: alerts from Blightcast (Syngenta) and an app UPL Blight Forecast.
The UPL app doesn't flag many alerts, Hutton criteria and Smith period allegedly not often met. While according to the Blightcast alerts it has been medium to high risk of blight (Hutton criteria) pretty much constantly for weeks now. Looking at the weather, I'm inclined to believe the latter

[Ger-annie-um]

Nope me neither, which I'm taking as a good thing.

That's what I thought too but I noticed potential blight on my spuds yesterday hence the question

[Dorothyrouse]

We have blight at our allotments in Kent,everyone has taken their tomatoes out, and many have taken the foliage off their potatoes. We had no’ blight warning’,it’s awful

[quanglewangle]

I am sure this is not the case with anyone on here, but...

Quite a few folks locally grow only earlies, planted early because of our mild springs. They then confuse the natural senescence that occurs around May/June with blight.

Just saying...

[Nicos]

OH came in a couple of days ago looking very concerned. He was holding a potato haulm and asked if the black marks were blight.

Not typical grey blight patches on the leaves and stem so I said I was pretty sure it’s not blight.
Two days later the plants look the same, and I’m guessing they would have started to collapse by now if it were.

Its not easy to tell as an amateur is it?

[Dorothyrouse]

Blight at the allotments and now blossom end rot on tomatoes at home, what a year!

have taken off affected toms and give a watering of ‘ gosh I’ve forgotten what it’s called’!

calcium ! I’ve just remembered

[ameno]

Cut down all my maincrop potatoes today, as they had blight. They lasted two days longer than the Charlottes did. I hope they've managed to set a decent crop already.
Also lost another beefsteak, with the remaining two plants not far behind.
And my F3 Mountain Magic plants are not as blight resistant as I was hoping. They're holding up better than the beefsteaks, but they are still getting quite badly hit. The proper Mountain Magic F1 are looking much healthier, although I have removed a small number of blighted leaves even from those.
This looks to be bad year for blight.

[Nicos]

Heartbreaking isn’t it?

[ameno]

Can any more experienced maincrop potato growers say whether I'm likely to have a half-decent crop on my Roosters after cutting them down on the 1st August? They were planted mid-April.
I cut them down due to blight around mid-August last year, and I still got a pretty good crop (enough to last me until Christmas), but obviously this is two weeks earlier. Although on the other hand, the foliage seems bigger this year, and we've had more rain, whereas last year was rather dry and I was having to water them, so maybe the extra water might have helped them swell more sooner.

[Jungle Jane]

Blight here too already & none even ripened yet,that’s a first & only ever time this happens hopefully I’ve removed the four blighted tomato plants,a couple others look a bit dodge I’m keeping an eye on them. This is really early for me,the weathers been bad.

[Penellype]

Can any more experienced maincrop potato growers say whether I'm likely to have a half-decent crop on my Roosters after cutting them down on the 1st August? They were planted mid-April.
I cut them down due to blight around mid-August last year, and I still got a pretty good crop (enough to last me until Christmas), but obviously this is two weeks earlier. Although on the other hand, the foliage seems bigger this year, and we've had more rain, whereas last year was rather dry and I was having to water them, so maybe the extra water might have helped them swell more sooner.

Really the only way to tell is to harvest them, but you are likely to have a crop of some description. My Desiree were planted in April and watering sometimes unearths potatoes near the surface, which are a reasonable size.