[Aunt Sally]

That looks like blight to me

[Dopey113]

Thats what I thought... sadly, have about 50.. to 60 plants, shame

[snow white]

Two days ago and all was well.  Now most of my crop is affected.  60 plants. 

Ran out of time but managed to cut the tops of three rows.  I am in IP21 suffolk

[veggiemo]

My "Foremost" got Blight yesterday - BN8 East Sussex

I've lifted some and they are fine but I've cut the haulms down on all of my spuds just in case.

They are growing under Terram with more soil on top so I will leave them where they are and just lift as needed.

[ConfusedGardener]

I planted a bed with potatoes (Maris Piper, Maris Peer, and Kestrel) late this year (1 month ago), and they've been coming up over the last couple of weeks. Today when watering I noticed that a few of them have blight. Should I dig them up? I'd like to try and prevent the others from getting blight too. If it means loosing a few I don't mind too much.

[beesrus]

Small King Edward maincrop on plot have now been cut down due to blight. Surprisingly my garden potatoes now have blight today and have been chopped ..... and not a Smith period here since the old King died. Last year not a sniff anywhere down here, this year, it's always been hanging around here and there in the background..... strange disease. Have a good crop though.
I really don't understand what relevance the Smith period is given it's qualification and don't really get what use the blight map is for allotmenteers in general, given that so may people near me have gone down with blight, but not a dot anywhere near here. I assume commercial growers don't rely on this map ? Is there some sort of research going on here that I can't fathom ?. Is there any useful statistical control ? Can anyone enlighten me ?

[mumofstig]

If no-one tells them where the blight is spotted - they won't know! Simple as that...............

Some of these sightings of blight, allotment or farm, may not actually be blight, it would have to be confirmed with testing, before a red dot was confirmed.

The Smith period is purely a means of letting you know that the conditions are right for blight, because some people will decide to spray at that stage.

[Ema]

I've had very few smith periods in Dorset.

My Earlys finished and died back by themselves in June after being in 3 months and without much water.

My mains are Sarpo Miras and seem to be doing just fine. (you can see the sarpos in the background of pics)

My toms on the plot 5 plants Santa Marzano have all got this I can only discribe it as looking like a 3ft garden gnome has come along and crushed the stems.





I cut a lot of the foliage back to expose the fruits last week and by the end of this week I had noticed some of the fruits had started to go a bit brown.

The know it all on the plot said it was blight but I'm not sure. What do you guys think?

I have 1 Santa Marzano at home in a pot (sown and raised at home with the others) as test subjects. These all look healthy a little damage from underwatering but no blackness.

[mumofstig]

Looks like blight to me  The blackening stems and browning fruit are typical.

[Ema]

thanks I'll cut them down this week before someone does it for me. If it is blight then the Sarpo Miras are worth the money! The Sarpos I grew last year go absolutly huge so here's hoping for the same

[Salmo]

Just a thought. It might be a good strategy to plant the tomatoes as far from the potatoes as possible. If potatoes get blight the easy solution is to cut the tops off. If tomatoes get blight the crop is almost certainly ruined. An infected potato crop next door does not help.

[mumofstig]

I always think that if potatoes on your plot have got blight, there's no chance of your toms not getting it, no matter where you plant them - specially on modern small size plots 

[LosingThePlot]

A few of my Romanos are looking like this. I'm a bit of a novice so asked one of the other plotholders what it is and they said it looks like the tops are just dying off, but I'm concerned it might be blight. What do you think it is?

[surbie100]

Thats what I thought... sadly, have about 50.. to 60 plants, shame

You're just up the road from me but there is no blight showing on the Blightwatch maps for any of London, East Berks, South Bucks or Surrey.

Wish there was an easier way for allotments to report blight incidents. 

[Aunt Sally]

You can sign up to be a BlightWatch scout, I have.