[shokkyy]

I did notice some spud plants looking a bit sickly but wasn't sure what it was so put it down to the hot weather and didn't remove them. In just a week, an entire row of Sante have gone down like ninepins. Too late, I now realise it's blackleg. One or two plants in a row of Desiree are now looking sickly too, so I guess it's spread to them. In between those two rows are a row of Sarpo Axona, which are still looking strong as an ox. According to the spud database Axona has very high resistance to blackleg as well as blight, so I'm crossing my fingers I'll at least get a crop from them.

Now I realise what it was, I'll rip up anything looking sickly tomorrow, but have one question - some of the sickly plants were quite big and starting to flower, but is it safe to eat any tubers on those plants, given that they're not looking rotten?

If the Axona do manage to produce a crop unscathed, being surrounded by blackleg on all sides, I'll never plant any other variety again. I did read somewhere that blackleg can survive in the soil through the winter to hit the next year's crop. Unfortunately, rotation isn't an option for me as I only have one piece of ground big enough and deep enough for spuds. Is there anything I can do to minimise the risk of the blackleg staying in the soil to next year?

[Yorkie]

Don't know about the food safety issue (but am interested in the answer as I too have blackleg on some of my spuds, hopefully not all  ).

Regarding the soil, I'm not sure there is anything as such.  It is illegal to use Jeyes Fluid as a soil sterilisant, in case anyone was thinking of suggesting it or you had it in mind.

[shokkyy]

Can anyone help with these questions? I'm keen to get some advice on this as I'm digging them all up today.

[mumofstig]

Eat the tubers on the nonsickly looking ones..of course.
Googleing suggests that in dry weather the blackleg infection will not have spread to 'daughter tubers' so as long as there is no rot present they will be safe to eat as well.
They suggest drying them very quickly after lifting and keeping very dry during any storage.

Sorry I cant supply the links' cos I didn't note them, and I'm running out off time online, so can't go to find them 

[shokkyy]

Eat the tubers on the nonsickly looking ones..of course.
Googleing suggests that in dry weather the blackleg infection will not have spread to 'daughter tubers' so as long as there is no rot present they will be safe to eat as well.
They suggest drying them very quickly after lifting and keeping very dry during any storage.

Thank you for that. As it turns out, they're still quite small but big enough for boiled, but I couldn't find any sign of rot on them. There isn't really any sign of black on the stems of the plants either, but I think it must be blackleg because a few weeks back I did remove a couple of small plants with black mushy stems. Now they're bigger, the entire row of spuds just suddenly collapsed and lay on the ground, and I think I recall seeing that described as the symptoms of late blackleg attack.

The only thing I can think of with regard to next year's crop is to make sure I get all this year's spuds out and next year only plant spuds with high blackleg resistance.