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  • From: Road's End Farm <organic87 AT frontiernet.net>
  • To: Market Farming <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] Looks like Late Blight but
  • Date: Thu, 12 Aug 2010 22:40:48 -0400


On Aug 12, 2010, at 10:14 PM, Pam Twin Oaks wrote:

[ . . . ]
The report from the Virginia Extension said EB, Septoria and aphids, no LB. Meanwhile we had been picking off and bagging affected leaves (yes, it did take a lot of time). Then the plants recovered, though not to a high-yielding state. Well, we had taken leaves off, so we can't expect miracles! I fully expected the plants to die.

Meanwhile, the potatoes which we harvested in mid July started to rot. We sorted and saved some, but the rot moved faster than we did! So today we took a truckful to the compost pile. It was mostly a soft bacterial rot, very smelly. There were patches of reddish-brown on the skins of some. Not raised or sunken. I wondered if that was LB too, and we didn't notice because it was time for the potato vines to die anyway. I wondered if the LB started the trouble, then the bacterial rot followed. My other "wonderment" was if the potatoes cooked in the ground in the 2 weeks after we mowed the weeds and vines, before we harvested. Those were a very hot two weeks.

Anyone have thoughts about this? Potatoes cooking in hot soil, LB, other potato rots?


My thoughts on this are: get those potatoes out of the compost pile! Late blight will definitely do that; and if it's that it can survive the winter in the compost and be waiting for you in the spring. Diseased potatoes should go in the landfill or be buried 2 feet deep.

Maybe it isn't late blight -- lots of things can cause secondary bacterial rot, which is what stinks so -- but I wouldn't take the chance. And even if it's some other disease, do you really want it in your compost?


-- Rivka; Finger Lakes NY, Zone 5 mostly
Fresh-market organic produce, small scale







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