[upert]

Your problems sound awful, so sorry for you.

Would it be a good idea to get your seed potatoes from a couple of different sources so that if one lot succumbed to a disease they were carrying the others wouldn't? Or does blackleg spread so quick that it wouldn't make a difference?

[mumofstig]

It's unusual to get more than one or 2 plants in any batch of bought seed potatoes, but soil and watering/weather do play a part. Perhaps last year was a bad year in the Grower's fields and a higher than normal number of infected tubers got into the seed stock.

[solway cropper]

I always get my seed spuds from reputable suppliers and every year get the odd plant or two with blackleg. Lady Christl seems to be particularly prone to the problem. This year it was a Charlotte that succumbed but when I pulled it up I found a dozen baby new potatoes so all was not lost. I'm not sure how quickly blackleg spreads but it never seems to infect more than a couple of my plants.