[Tiglet]

I've just discovered that my first early potatoes have blight so will be digging them all up and burning the foliage but...... I want to use this area now for other things that are ready to go in.  Could I put sprouts there?

[madcat]

Blight!  Already?     Where are you?

[Beejay]

Blight!  Already?     Where are you?

Madcat! There have been a few posts about blight the last few days!

Where have you been

[Iain@JBA]

I have had people bringing potato leafs up to my office today and they all have black dots on them that then turn brown and the leaves turn pale green/yellow. I have tested all the samples with a tester kit and all were negative. The people were amazed. It is a shortage of magnesium that can be cured with epsom salt. Try the epsom salt first before trashing all your crops. I used some the other night on potatoes growing in bags and they look twice as good now.

[JWK]

Good advice from Iain@JBA.

It is possible that it is early blight aka Target Spot (Alternaria solani) which is not such a problem as late blight (Phytophthora infestans).

If it really does turn out to be blight then don't dig them up straight away. Best to cut down and dispose/burn/destroy the haulms (tops/leaves) and then wait at least a couple of weeks before digging. This minimises the risk of getting blight in the tubers.

[madcat]

Madcat! There have been a few posts about blight the last few days!

Where have you been
[/quote]

Stuck in an office with a corporate firewall ....     Haven't even got down the plot - hence the panic!  Wking from home again today so as soon as .....   

[Tiglet]

Madcat, Iain, JWK and Beejay, many thanks for the quick replies.  Have to admit that I decided to dig up a couple of plants last night and on one of them the seed potato was rotten, all wet and squishy but the potatoes were all clean and OK so dug the lot up.  Thought it better to get what I could from them instead of risking the whole crop being ruined.  Have trimmed the leaves of any second earlies with brown spots on and will leave these in.  So far these plants look very healthy.

If I dig over the section where the first earlies were this weekend, will it be OK to transplant some sprouts to this area?

BTW, we're in North Wales.... halfway up the side of a windy steep valley

[DD.]

The seed spud will rot irrespective of blight.

[Tiglet]

You can tell that I am new to this can't you..... 

[karooba007]

I have the same problem. brown spots on potato leaves then the plant turns light green then yellow. dug some up and the ones that had become yellow have the stem below ground rotten.

asked a few people on the site they thought it was blight but one guy said it was magnesium deficiency and that u should use epson salt. I believe the guy who said it was magnesium deficiency. I have put down some epson salt today but wasn't sure how much to put and if I put to much what the negative results are. The plot hasn’t been used for 15 years so who did I get this problem?