possible potato blight..

[Rich75]

,, well , as it says on the tin, I have a nasty feeling my spuds have caught the lurgy.. They have brown marks at the edges of some of their leaves, and on plant has totally shrivelled up and died.. brown bits all over the place. I checked the spuds in the ground as well and whipped them out to stop things getting worse, they were pretty small which wasn't too surprising as they were maincrop, but they also had loads of little white bumps over them.. is that symptomatic of blight?..

[zazen999]

Hi

Sure it's not frost damage? We got some frost last week and ours have the same sort of problem.

[Rich75]

dont think so.. i was away last week but i dont think there was any frost in london.. lots of rain though , along with reasonable temps, so its been pretty humid which is basically prefect blight weather as far as im aware

[Two_Sheds]

I doubt you've got blight.. we haven't had enough warm and humid days (yet). Check out the Blightwatch pages for more info, and type in your postcode for warnings about the Smith Periods. Blightwatch.co.uk - the essential service for professional potato growers
"a full Smith Period has occurred if, on each of 2 consecutive days:
* the minimum air temperature was at least 10oC, and
* there were a minimum of 11 hours with a relative humidity of at least 90%

Smith Period conditions are conducive for sporulation of the potato blight pathogen on lesions - leaf wetness is also necessary for infection to occur. If Smith Periods occur at frequent and regular (7-10 day) intervals, there is a greater chance of blight development."

[Rich75]

thanks for that. will have a look

[scarey55]

One other thing Rich,

a lot of my potatoes had sort of white spots on them but I think that's just the way some of them come out of the ground and is nothing to worry about.

[TRAFALGAR]

Thought same, went to allotment last weds to discover most of my spuds had brown blotchly leaves, obviously blight I thought but old hand on next allotment assured me we had a bit of frost and should be ok.

[Rich75]

thanks all, well i checked the blight webpage, and apparently yesterday was the only day that was bad enough.. but even then you need 2 days in a row , so hopefully its not blight but something else.. what I don't know!.. maybe we did have a bit of a frost..

[Two_Sheds]

thanks all, well i checked the blight webpage, and apparently yesterday was the only day that was bad enough.. but even then you need 2 days in a row

you need 2 days in a row to qualify as a Smith period, but it doesn't necessarily mean you will get blight ... it just means conditions are perfect for blight to appear. You need repeated Smith periods for a blight attack - have another look at t'website.