Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Growing => Grow Your Own => Topic started by: matt.k on June 16, 2009, 19:56
-
Hi all
I planted my first early potatoes in the middle of March - they got off to a great start 8) - but now they are looking really sad :(.
They are Swift 1st Earlies by Thompson and Morgan, purchased at my local Garden Centre. I chose these as they are supposed to be fairly well resistant to most things.
(http://i99.photobucket.com/albums/l318/matt_k_photo/Allotment/IMG_2542.jpg)
The problem is the foliage
(http://i99.photobucket.com/albums/l318/matt_k_photo/Allotment/IMG_2541.jpg)
Someone has said it is blight :ohmy: but (so far) it hasn't transfered to my second earlies (Kestrel) or mains (Sarpo Mira) which are very close by - and are very healthy in comparison.
The potatoes have not flowered yet - i've had a furtle and can't seem to find anything. I donated a few spares to my brother in law and they are the same on his plot. No one else appears to have this problem on the site. :unsure:
Should i be worried??
Any advice would be much appreciated as i 'luv me spuds' :)
Cheers
Matt
-
Anyone??
Please
-
Is it leaf drop streak? This is an aphid borne disease, and I have put a photo link here so that you can compare
http://www.potato.org.uk/department/knowledge_transfer/pests_and_diseases/ref.html?item=20
Hope this helps :D
-
Well my spuds had this and I was putting it down to dry weather and stress creating a problem. I sprayed a mixture of epsom salt and foliar feed and gave the base of the plants a good watering and the problem stopped. I tested the leaves for blight and the result was negative.
-
Don't think it's blight and very strange that your BILs are the same, so can't be a soil deficiency problem either. So sorry wasn't ignoring you just can't help :(
Only the weather to blame then :D
-
Do you think yours look like this?
http://www.gardenersworld.com/how-to/problem-solving/magnesium-deficiency/ (http://www.gardenersworld.com/how-to/problem-solving/magnesium-deficiency/)
-
Try epsom salts for magnesium deficiency, as MoS suggested.
If you do a search for epsom salts you'll find recent threads with the dosages. Hope that sorts it out :D
By the way, it's really unusual for posts on this forum to go unanswered, so there's no need to 'bump' the thread, particularly after less than 2 hours.
Here's our site policies, which have more detail on this -
http://chat.allotment-garden.org/index.php?topic=19481.0
-
Do you think yours look like this?
http://www.gardenersworld.com/how-to/problem-solving/magnesium-deficiency/ (http://www.gardenersworld.com/how-to/problem-solving/magnesium-deficiency/)
Thanks MoS!!
They do look suspiciously like these, looks like i have a solution :)
cheers
-
Try epsom salts for magnesium deficiency, as MoS suggested.
If you do a search for epsom salts you'll find recent threads with the dosages. Hope that sorts it out :D
By the way, it's really unusual for posts on this forum to go unanswered, so there's no need to 'bump' the thread, particularly after less than 2 hours.
Here's our site policies, which have more detail on this -
http://chat.allotment-garden.org/index.php?topic=19481.0
Thanks Yorkie
Will do some searching on Epsom salts as suggested.
Sorry for being impatient :wub: - just thought my thread was disappearing quite rapidly down the pages :wacko:
Thanks again all
Cheers
Matt
-
My spuds look exactly the same and they were Swift too, I convinced myself it was the dreaded blight and chopped the haulms off, maybe I have been too hasty - arrghh! I am growing them in sacks and only one has been affected so far.
-
I had/have exactly the same black spots, thought it was early blight at first but after reading more posts decided it was mag deficiency, I cut off the worst bits and applied epsom salts which improved it greatly, and we just had our first taste of the year...delicious :)
Debbie there may still be healthy spuds in your sacks, have you had checked, it may not be too late to eat them :)
-
I have just chopped the tops off all of my hunter potatoes as they looked blighty, on reflection it may have been mag deficiency, just odd it only affected my hunters, everything else is in cracking health
-
Dunno they do look different to the earlier pics though :(
It's the dieing bits that i don't like the look ofto be honest. See what the others think!
-
u have what looks like the same problem as me. I got spots on the leaf then the plant turned light green then yellow then died. I dug a few up and the ones that had turned yellow and light green the stemp just below ground was rotting.
was told by the site manager who is in his 70s that it’s magnesium deficiency and to add epson salt which is magnesium sulphate.
so i did this last sunday. i think in my case the ones which have turned yellow and light green it’s too late for them. But the ones which have just the brown spots on them they might be saved.
WHAT I WANT TO KNOW IS WHAT IS THE CAUSE OF THE MAGNESIUM DIFFICIEWNCY???
-
I was posting last week about my spuds looking like this too - was sure it was blight but have gone down the epsom salts route before trying dithane.... still a bit too early to see any difference though.
There seems to be a lot of this about this year - my spuds that are affected are pink fir apple growing in pots in garden centre compost - my lady balfour in the ground are totally unaffected!
Wonder why?! :wacko:
-
u have what looks like the same problem as me. I got spots on the leaf then the plant turned light green then yellow then died. I dug a few up and the ones that had turned yellow and light green the stemp just below ground was rotting.
yes mine very quickly went from brown spots to yellow then to dead
but they were not rotting below the ground
-
the potatoes are not rotting, once the plant turns light green\yellow the stem just below ground starts to rot.
I planted three types and all are affected. I planted them on a patch of soil near were the road is. Maybe it’s an acidity issue as well as I know that water run off from building materials causes the soil to become acidic. And maybe the acidic soil has caused this magnesium issue In some way :wacko:. The plot hasn’t been used for 15 years and others on the site haven’t got this problem.
-
Debbie there may still be healthy spuds in your sacks, have you had checked, it may not be too late to eat them :)
Thanks, I think I will have a furtle this afternoon and see if they are okay.
-
A few of my first early Charlottes are looking like this, but as I am harvesting them and they seem okay I am not going to spray them. The maincrops are okay at the moment but I will get out the epsom salts if I see the same thing happening.