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Recognising Blight

How do I avoid potato blight?

There are a number of things you can do to reduce the instance of potato blight from the type and variety of potato you grow to good garden hygiene and finally damage limitation when it does hit. 

Non-chemical control

Growing early varieties

Blight is most common in July and August so growing early varieties which are harvested before blight arrives allow you to avoid the disease. You will need to grow early potatoes for immediate use rather than maincrop potatoes for storage.

Allotment Hygiene

• Make sure all potatoes are removed from the soil at the end of the season, this can be difficult as some very small tubers can be difficult to find.
• Avoid dumping infected potatoes near your plot.
• Potatoes from the previous season growing on a compost heap are a common source of infection in many allotments so try to keep a potato free heap.
• Blight is spread by the wind, so removal of infected plants and debris is essential, burn it or remove from site.

Chemical Sprays:

• All of the sprays available to the amateur grower are really only preventative measures.
• Bordeaux Mixture
• Baking Soda mixed with vegetable oil with water
• Bayer Garden Fruit and Vegetable Disease Control
• Recent studies have indicated that spraying tomato plants with a diluted asprin solution tricks the tomatoes defence mechanism into toughning the leaves and stems making them 47% less likely to be effected by blight.  This also managed to make fruit sweeter and higher in vitamins too.