[Mark's Sussex Allotment]

I have a 12 foot row off Sarpo, and they have blight spots all over them.

Anyone else had this problem?

[mumofstig]

Pictures please cos that doesn't usually happen 

[Mark's Sussex Allotment]

I'll try and get some tonight and post about 7pm

[sowitgrowit]

Not this early in the year but I've grown Sarpo which got blight a little bit on the leaves.  The spuds, though, were fine. 

[JayG]

Might be wrong but I seem to remember someone posting that the Sarpo varieties can still get attacked by blight, but they have enough resistance to not actually be killed by it. 

[Mark's Sussex Allotment]

Here are the piccies - Finally!

[JayG]

Don't know whether that's early (target) blight or a demonstration of how good Sarpo varieties are at continuing to grow through a late blight attack. 

Whichever it is it certainly hasn't killed them anyway. 

[Mark's Sussex Allotment]

Not yet, but the desiree in the bed next to them, are pretty much brown stalks......

[BabbyAnn]

interesting, one of the salad potato varieties I'm growing this year has a die back mechanism - as soon as blight spores germinate on the leaves, the leaf dies off and preserves the tuber from infection

[diospyros]

So do blight resistant potatoes actually encourage blight, if they carry on growing and their owners don't rush out to remove all infected foliage?

[JayG]

Good question - don't know the answer! 

The only way they wouldn't add to the number of blight spores released into the environment would be if they somehow suppress or kill the fungus before it has a chance to reproduce, but I have no idea whether that's the case either.

[Mark's Sussex Allotment]

I'll take another picture in a week, and see how the blight has progressed.

In the meantime, the other have become Haulmless.