Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Growing => Grow Your Own => Topic started by: al78 on August 25, 2014, 00:50
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I have dug all my Cara potatoes and ended up with a large crop overall with many huge potatoes however I would estimate 90+% of the crop had been holed by keel slugs. I did leave them outside for a while after harvest but can I still get away with storing these for any length of time? I can't possibly eat three full sacks of potatoes myself any time soon. Can anyone recommend a maincrop potato variety that is both blight and slug resistant, and ideally matures late August onwards.
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I had the same problem with Kestral & Cara slugs a few years ago. A fantastic crop ruined by slug damage.
I then moved to Desiree and the slug damage is been reduced to around 15%. I have also tried Maris Piper and again they were totally decimated by slugs, for me only the Desiree have been slug resistant.
But they are a early main so if I plant around late March they are ready late July.
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My king edwards had no slug damage but I dont know if they are naturally resistant
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Not on my plot, they're not :D
Only lost 10% though, so far.
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I don't think the slugged ones will store, they tend to rot very quickly :(
The best you can do is remove all the grotty bits and cook and freeze them.
I've grown Kestrel and Desiree this year, with very little slug damage.
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Gave up with Cara because although the crop was great, the slug damage made a lot of them unusable. Tried Picasso this year, which I think has Cara as one of the 'parents', and the spuds are huge, with some slug damage, but not as bad as Cara.
I agree that Desiree seems to be pretty much slug resistant. Only one or two tubers affected.
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I don't grow main crop for that reason only earlies and second earlies they are out the ground before the slugs and blight get going.
A farmer near me sells Picasso at £5 a 56lb bag so it is not worth the bother of Main crop.
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I don't grow main crop for that reason only earlies and second earlies they are out the ground before the slugs and blight get going.
A farmer near me sells Picasso at £5 a 56lb bag so it is not worth the bother of Main crop.
Yes I can understand that. I am trying to grow as much of my food as possible, which means growing at least some things which can be stored over winter, which means growing maincrop spuds.
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I've grown Desiree for years and never had a problem till this year. Dug up half a row on Friday and got 10 usable spuds. A very large number of slugs did not survive.
Found a slightly different pest yesterday when I spotted movement on my wild flower patch. 5 field mice so now I know what the nibble marks are from. They are now in a field some distance away.
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I don't grow main crop for that reason only earlies and second earlies they are out the ground before the slugs and blight get going.
A farmer near me sells Picasso at £5 a 56lb bag so it is not worth the bother of Main crop.
Yes I can understand that. I am trying to grow as much of my food as possible, which means growing at least some things which can be stored over winter, which means growing maincrop spuds.
I stored kestrel (second earlies) over the winter with no problem last year and I intend to do the same this year. They last us until about feb/March normally
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I don't grow main crop for that reason only earlies and second earlies they are out the ground before the slugs and blight get going.
A farmer near me sells Picasso at £5 a 56lb bag so it is not worth the bother of Main crop.
Yes I can understand that. I am trying to grow as much of my food as possible, which means growing at least some things which can be stored over winter, which means growing maincrop spuds.
I stored kestrel (second earlies) over the winter with no problem last year and I intend to do the same this year. They last us until about feb/March normally
I have grown Kestrel for the last 5 years always a good crop stores well make good chips, roasters, drawbacks are they sometime get a blemish right in the middle and sometimes they go to water when boiled but that is due to the weather.
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This is not an answer to your question about a maincrop that is slug resistant al78, but an idea, if it suits your style of growing:
I add slug bait under each seed potato, plus a few more when I earth up the first time. This seems to keep the general population of slugs down, and greatly reduce the damage.
This year I grew Kestrels with little damage, and for maincrops mostly Ambo. These grow large, and were virtually free of slug damage (issues with rats but that is another story :lol: )
Hope that helps a little bit.
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Thanks for all the helpful suggestions.
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My approach to the present crop would be to sort out the worst affected to be used first and store the rest as usual. If you find a few rotting you can turn out the bags and sort them through again.
I have found that if I leave potatoes in the ground beyond now the slugs move in. My approach has been to grow second earlies or early mains that are bulked up by the end of July and lift them by about the middle of August. As long as they are dry when they go into store there is no problem with keeping through the Winter. It is important that the skins are set before you lift or they will bruise and the skins will rub when they are lifted. To ensure this either the tops must have died back naturally or the tops must have been removed 2 weeks before lifting. The latter has usually happened anyway as a blight precaution.
This year charlotte and Nicola have not a hole to be seen. Least damage ever.
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You could have a look at JBA seed potato (http://www.jbaseedpotatoes.co.uk/buy-seed-potatoes/slug-resistant-seed-potatoes) list for slug resistant spuds. I noticed Cara is on the list but I've had slug damage in the past but have found the red skinned varieties such as Desiree, Romano and Rooster to be a little better. Like a lot of others, I don't grow main crop potatoes now simply because of the late maturing aspect - too many things go wrong, usually weather related which allow pests and diseases to move in. Also, bear in mind that supermarket potatoes tend to be treated to prevent sprouting whereas home stored start earlier than you think - the second early crops seem to last well into winter, and even if they get a little wrinkled, are still cookable (some make great chips)
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I generally grow Swift, Picaso and Cara and I generally had to waste half of them due to slug damage. This year I grew in poly bags and the results have been amazing, good yields and not a damaged potato in sight. Although more expensive than straight in the ground the results are well worth it, this will be my method from now on. Plus there is no need to use pellets when planting which is even better.
Give a few bags a go next year and see the difference.
Thanks
RF
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I only grow a few spuds in the ground now - Lady C's this year - as I prefer the new potatoes grown in bags of compost.
Very little damage from the Lady C's in the allotment bed (I don't think they're slug resistant - someone correct me if I'm wrong), but never a hint of damage in the spud bags ;)
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Ideal for a few tubs/bags of earlies, but much too expensive to grow more than a few.
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It is the more expensive option that's for sure, but I do like the result :)
I've got a cheap MPC supplier locally - £1.95 a bag so that helps. I buy chicken poo pellets in bulk too :)
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It is the more expensive option that's for sure, but I do like the result :)
Got to agree here it is more expensive, but when you tip one out and everyone of the spuds are in perfect condition, it makes it all worth it. It is so frustrating when most of them have holes in them, which you usually find when you get them home and wash them.
All from one 17 litre bag, grown in compost with a handful of potato fertilizer mixed in the bottom third.
(https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5586/14780832418_59b246eabf_c.jpg)
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I don't grow main crop for that reason only earlies and second earlies they are out the ground before the slugs and blight get going.
A farmer near me sells Picasso at £5 a 56lb bag so it is not worth the bother of Main crop.
pretty much my approach as well, when I can buy a 25KG sack of spuds from the local farm for £4 to £6 and you look at what your returns are for growing and the relevant issues plus space taken on the plot it doesn't quite make sense to me.
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Grow Sarpo Axona or Mira. Blight and slug resistant.
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Same problem here - I wish there was a slug predator - please send my way!!
Mike.
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A farmer near me sells Picasso at £5 a 56lb bag so it is not worth the bother of Main crop.
pretty much my approach as well, when I can buy a 25KG sack of spuds from the local farm for £4 to £6 and you look at what your returns are for growing and the relevant issues plus space taken on the plot it doesn't quite make sense to me.
I vacillate on this ... storing Main Crop spuds, and them not all sprouting before Christmas, is a challenge ... whereas the farmer has a cold store that takes care of that problem, and bought bulk from farm shop/gate they are cheap.
But a year or two back, when we had a dreadful summer, it turned out that the "farm gate" spuds were imported as the farmer didn't have enough. That started to worry me ... my understanding is that farmers here dessicate the hulms of spuds, prior to harvest, with acid - which is probably benign? - whereas it used to be done with Gramoxone; Gramoxone has been banned in the EU for a while, but is still used widely elsewhere outside the EU and I am not sure I want to eat anything that has been treated with that, or other "who knows if they will be banned soon" chemicals.
All I need is a cheap cold store and space enough to grow my own Main Crop Spuds ::)