Growing Potatoes

Hort101

If i was to grow potatoes in the garden would you really have to spray or would you get away with leaving them?? This applies to early and maincrop spuds.. Would they die or stick it out??

Any advice would be great.. thanks

sirpsycho

No way to tell really. Is your garden fairly sheltered? I grew some spuds in the garden last year and they were fine. Just keep an eye on them when blight season kicks in.

Clare man

I did not spray the last 2 years and got away with it, it all depends on what type of summer we have. I only plant earlies, my guess is you would not get away with it on maincrop.blight typicall tends to be most prevalent from July

Keep a close eye out and sww what happens..

Cardinal Richelieu

It also depends if much potatoes are grown around you. You might be blight free but blight could spread from your near neighbours.

Hort101

Yeah i might try it this year and see what happens.. pesticides are expensive these days.. especially garden ones.. I work on 2 large farms who produce over 100 acres every year.. these is also at least 10 other farmers around my area who produce the same amount.. some more, some less.. so they are plentiful..

Thanks for the post anyway

brno

I get blight in my garden any year I don't spray but i always get away with not spraying my earlies.never get away with main crop!!!!

Zuiderzee

For a main crop try Sarpo Mira, Sarpo Axona or Setanta as mains - they have good blight resistance

Hort101

Ill try one of them sprays.. thanks.. no blight warnings are out yet anyway thanks for that

bbam

You could try a milk/water spray.. 1 part milk, 2 parts water..
It's an old organic mixture... apparently needs a few applications...

Worth Googling it to see if it's a runner or not...

Zuiderzee

bbam wrote: »

You could try a milk/water spray.. 1 part milk, 2 parts water..
It's an old organic mixture... apparently needs a few applications...

Worth Googling it to see if it's a runner or not...

The milk mixture is more for gooseberries and rust on other fruit.
I do see the reasoning though, it promotes the growth of bacteria that attacks the fungus spore that causes rust, and may well do the same thing to blight spores.

Horsetail spray is said to be good for blight, but do not introduce the horsetail plant to your garden.

For caterpillar/butterfly spray I use a seaweed-nettle tea with garlic and chilli powder, that does work well and fertilizes at the same time.

bbam

Zuiderzee wrote: »

Horsetail spray is said to be good for blight, but do not introduce the horsetail plant to your garden.

:eek::eek::eek:

That's like playing with petrol and matches... sure to go badly wrong

It may be advice to give to a sworn enemy, but no sane person should go chopping up horsetail for fear it would invaid their garden...
Horsetail is straight from the Devil, those who mess with it are in for trouble, big big trouble.

dardevle

......

Horsetail has good antifungal properties (high silica content) and has long been considered a good preventative for blight, especially in bio-dynamic farming, since all that is used is an infusion from steeping the plant, there should be no threat of introducing it into the garden.


milk works well also- i believe the thinking behind the use of it is that, since it promotes the growth of bacteria, by applying it first a fungus will not populate the same area.



.......

deandean

I always have to spray my potatoes, I live in an urban area and any time I haven't sprayed my crop has been blighted.

The cost is nada - I still have a tin of Dithane 945 that I bought in ~1995 for about £6. I keep a separate sprayer for Dithane to avoid accidents.

In recent years I spray on a preventative basis, every 10 days from 1st week of June. If the haulms get even a touch of blight your crop is crud.