[RichG]

Hi all,

I have just finished digging up my first attempt at potatoes on my allotment site. The problem is that half of them have worm holes which i believe are caused by wire worms.
Couple of questions,

Is there any way of stopping the wireworms?

What do you do with all of the damaged/ half eaten potatoes? Compost them? or will they grow in the compost bin. Or destroy them and if so how ??

Cheers

Richard

[bigben]

Sorry to hear this  Rich - I had a similar problem this year. Some just had a couple of holes while others really were ruined. Those without holes I have put into storage in a cardboard box with layers of paper on top to cut out the light. I will check them next weekend to see if any are starting to rot. Those with a few holes I have put to one side to use first. I found that if cut up you can see the extent of the damage and they are fine to use in soup or even mash etc. Just make sure you cut them and ensure all the visitors have left.
Those badly effected I have binned so they dont try to resprout in my compost bin and I dont bring wireworm and add it to my compost.
I heard that sowing mustard as a green manure can do something to the eggs of somethings that eat spuds but I think it might be eel worms  - someone else will let you know. Next year I am planning to not grow main crop spuds and just grow earlies that are supposed to suffer less damage as they are in the ground for a shorter length of time.

[RichG]

Thanks for the reply. Some of them are like a hollow shell, strange as they are on the same plant as ones that are totally unaffected. I’ll be washing them all tonight and sorting. I’ll use the damaged ones first with the damage cut off as you say, hope there are no crunchy bits in them !!!!
Good idea about binning them, hadn’t thought that I could be adding the wireworms to the compost. We are putting mustard onto the beds but I think you are right about eel worms, doesn’t it harden the shells on the eggs to stop them hatching ??
The earlies did really well, good idea to grow them and store. I did read that wireworm are normally eradicated from the ground after 5 years of rotovation. It also says that you should regularly dig the ground so that the birds can remove them.

[Troopersnoots]

Hi, try a different variety next time. I grew Sante, Accent, Maxine and Desiree and the only ones with holes in were the Desiree, other people on the site had similar results.
 Sante were the best potatoes I have grown, good size and renowned for having good resistance to blight, slugs and worms so maybe consider this, got them from Marshalls.

[MOLUSC]

I grew maris piper last year and threw away about 90% due to worm damage!
This year i grew sarpo mira although expensive to buy as seed potato but had no damage at all (except from my garden fork)

[pink aubergine]

You only normally only get wireworm  damage when potatoes have been planted on a patch which was previously grassland. I would suggest if some of the poatoes are hollow I would think it is slugs, particularly keel slugs which are very small and black. They leave holes about a quarter of an inch across. If you want to be organic, then beer traps or keeping down long grass around plots will help. Eelworms are very small, almost invisible to the naked eye, so son't think it's those

[Muddylou]

I lost around 70% of my Lady Balfour to wire worm this year (I presume it's them, lots of small holes 2-3 mm across). They were in the ground a long time but then so were my Romano last year and I can't remember many of them being affected. It's a pity as L Balfours are huge yielders.

[barefoot nellie]

I just did a quick search to look for advice about the same thing. I've lost most of my potatoes this year to wireworm. 
It was really bad damage and I've even found the culprits still in the potatoes, so I'm certain that it's wireworm. I'm also wondering what to do with all the potatoes. We've tried to use some of them, but the damage is quite bad and we don't end up with much usable potato. I don't think I'll bother with potatoes next year at all, because from what I've read there's not much you can do about wireworm. You just have to wait for them to mature and move on. And keep the soil well dug to prevent more of the larvae... I'm no expert, this is just what I've read. I think I'll research the mustard idea and hopefully that'll be some help.

[someoneorother]

I remember reading somewhere that you can accelerate the rate they clear out of the soil by leaving a few bait potatoes in the soil - stick a spike through a few potatoes and bury them in the soil, leave a couple of weeks then pull up - hopefully full of wireworm. Repeat as needed. Never needed to do it myself, mind, so I'm just going from memory of what someone said Failing that, they usually clear on their own after a few years of not being grassland any more, don't they?

[Aunt Sally]

They dwindle over about 4 years.

[JohnB47]

I grew King Edward and Picasso this year - no problems with the King Edward but many Picasso had small holes, presumably wireworm because this was the first time that part of the plot had been used for years. Pitty because Picasso produced a massive yeald - around four times that of the KE.

Must investigate for a better variety next year - Sante maybe, as Troopersnoots said?