Help! Potato Problems!

[The Doctor]

Apologies in advance but because of the pictures-per-post limit this may spread into two.

I had a potato plant as in the first picture. My pest and disease book suggests it was leaf-roll virus so I dug it up. Only to find two small potatoes and a gooey mess as per piccy two!

I then proceeded to dig up another 6 or so. Each had a handful of potatoes that look okay, and every one also had more of the gooey ones. Some of the soft potatoes hadn't yet disintegrated and looked like piccy three.

I checked the leaves and saw evidence of spotting as per piccy's four and five.

[The Doctor]

When I investigated further, I found several keel slugs, two large beetles as per piccy one, and some of the stems were hollow as per piccy two.

Since I was on my own, I had a little nosey around and my plot neighbour's potatoes are covered in similar spots, piccy's three and four. I also found evidence that he had pulled up some plants and they were rotten too so he had left them on his plot!

So, is this the dreaded blight?

Are the potatoes that seem okay still safe to eat?

Since every plant I dug up (only sante and catriona so far) had it, am I better off lifting them all now, including the pink fir apples mains?

How can I prevent whatever it is in the future?

Sorry about all the questions and thanks in advance.

[PAULW]

DOC
Are you sure the soggy spud wasn't just the parent seed potato that you planted

[The Doctor]

I thought about that myself, but each plant had several going soft, rather than just one, so I assumed not.

[Mozzi]

I have also had several dodgy potatoes, and this being my first year growing them I didn't really have a clue.

The dodgy ones were squishy in places, with a somewhat unpleasant odour, and when I washed them under running water, the squishiness washed off to leave furrows all over the potatoes. Some were only affected in a small way, others had almost lost half their size.

The plants themselves looked pretty good though.

I was wondering if this was due to excessive water, as not only have we had weeks of rain, but the allotment was flooded by a burst water main on the main road, and it took close on 4 days for the water to drain. The day after the burst pipe, I harvested the potatoes which were under water, and they were fine, but I'm thinking that the others may have got too wet for too long....

Not being deterred too much, I have only binned about 4 of those really badly affected, the rest have been washed and peeled down to good firm potato flesh, and eaten, and so far without any disastrous consequences.

I would be interested to know, though, what the cause was, so any advice will be greatly appreciated.