[matt.k]

Hi all

I planted my first early potatoes in the middle of March - they got off to a great start  - 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.



The problem is the foliage



Someone has said it is blight  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.

Should i be worried??

Any advice would be much appreciated as i 'luv me spuds'

Cheers

Matt

[matt.k]

Anyone??

Please

[sunshineband]

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 

[Iain@JBA]

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.

[mumofstig]

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

[mumofstig]

Do you think yours look like this?
http://www.gardenersworld.com/how-to/problem-solving/magnesium-deficiency/

[Yorkie]

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 

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

[matt.k]

Do you think yours look like this?
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

[matt.k]

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 

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 - just thought my thread was disappearing quite rapidly down the pages


Thanks again all

Cheers

Matt

[Debbie D]

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.

[home made pie]

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 

[Ropster]

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

[mumofstig]

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!

[karooba007]

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???

[cathy81walking]

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?!