Where can you find photos of what potato blight looks like -

Because of the damp yet warm weather, I have been looking at the potato foliage each time I am on the vegetable plot.   All had been going well, the potatoes harvested so far had been as good as one would hope.

First signs of blight on potato foliage.   

Yesterday after a couple of days without a visit to the allotment; I discovered the signs of blight on the leaves of the potato plants. The leaves have the white shadow as well as the brown marks, but they have not gone to the total collapse stage.

What to do when you see blight symptoms on the leaves of potatoes.

Today the first action we need to take is to remove the foliage of the potato plants. Potato foliage the is affected needs to be bagged and binned or burned. Some advice given elsewhere says you can compost it.  My compost bin never builds up enough heat to destroy the 'nasties' so I am ignoring that and am following a safer option. Every reference I have read on to what to do with any affected potato tubers says - do not compost them.


Most advice on blight says - leave the potatoes in the ground after removing the tops until the spores are no longer on the soil surface. The advice usually given basically says - this gives the potatoes a chance to produce thicker skins and harvesting after two or three weeks allows the spores to die off and not get onto the potatoes as you harvest them.  However it is best to read up on advice from several sources and then apply what you know about your vegetable plot as to which advice to follow.


Photos of blight and advice on a garden organic site - http://www.gardenorganic.org.uk/factsheets/dc17.php

Trying to avoid the problem of potato blight in future years.

In future years you might want to consider growing blight resistant varieties and Thompson &Morgan have a range of potatoes sold as blight resistant seed potato.
This is the link for the page of seed potatoes -
http://search.thompson-morgan.com/seeds/Blight%20Resistant%20Potatoes


 Next Year.

• One idea I will follow is to plant first early seed potatoes which are harvested early in the year.
• As always use a crop rotation plan when selecting where to plant the potatoes next year.
• Ensure that I try to dig up all the potatoes that are in the ground. 

An explanation of why the weather can  affect and increase the risk of potato blight.
Potato-growers-warned-sharp-rise-blight-risk/story


Check your tomatoes too for signs of this disease as they also suffer from blight.

Photo of potato leaf affected with blight.

Photo of potato with blight.