Blessings, Cursing and Wisdom
Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
The Irish story is one of overcoming challenges and making new lives. Enjoy and celebrate this day!
Vegetables were not cultivated at all in Ireland until around the 8th century and before that wild leaves, roots, berries and fungi were eaten. When they did arrive, the main vegetables grown were carrots, parsnips, celery, turnip, cabbage and onion.
Potatoes arrived at the beginning of the 17th century potatoes. They were cheap and easy to grow and many of the lower classes ate mostly potatoes.
Potato famine. Wet conditions caused potatoes to rot away in 1845. The disease spores stuck around for seven years: from 1845-1852! This led to mass starvation and emigration out to other countries where food and opportunity was more available. There is a lot of information available on the internet about the Great Famine in Ireland and the impacts it had around the world if you’d like to look into that.
What I want you to know is that potato blight looks like this:
What causes potato blight?
Early blight: the fungus Alternaria solani and late blight: Phytophthora infestans fungus. These fungi can also infect other members of the potato family, Solanaceae such as tomatoes. They spreads via airborne spores on the wind until they land on a susceptible plant and the weather conditions are right for them to develop: warm and humid.
How to prevent it? Good practice helps prevent potato blight
Be sure to get all the potatoes out from the ground when you harvest, even the tiny ones if you can so you don’t leave a reservoir of infection on your plot.
Ensure potatoes are well earthed up to protect tubers so preventing it spreading into them even if you get blight in the foliage
Water from the base rather than spraying potato leaves. If the weather is right but there is no rain, your artificial rain will give the blight a hold. Leaky hoses are a good way to water potatoes, unless you have hosepipe restrictions
If it is your first time planting potatoes, you should invest in early varieties. This potato variety takes a shorter time in the soil and harvesting before potato blight strikes. Harvesting your crop early is the best way to reduce the chances of infection, considering that as a newbie, you are more likely to make a few mistakes - and that’s ok!
What varieties resist it? Best Potatoes for Blight Resistance
Elba is considered the most blight-resistant variety of potato sold in the United States. It is a great table potato and can be cooked in a variety of dishes. It keeps well and maintains its unique and delicious flavor throughout the winter. Elba produces young “baby” or “new” potatoes as early as 65 days from planting and produces mature tubers in 90 days.
Nicola is a yellow-fleshed potato with waxy flesh. It is prized for making potato salads, has a high yield, and stores well. It produces oval or oblong tubers. This potato variety is colored yellow and usually has an oval shape. Many love this variety because of its high-yielding capability. Who doesn’t like a bountiful blight-free harvest? The harvest also stores better than other potato varieties. Better storage outcomes make the variety that much easier to transport for sale.
Cara is prized for its delicious mashed or baked potatoes. It produces large, round potatoes and stores well. This potato variety offers the resistant quality but is the best option for a mean mashed potato dish. It is also a great variety to use if you want to make baked potatoes.
Acoustic produces well-shaped oval or round tubers with white flesh. These potatoes are a good all-around table potato and are suitable for nearly any dish. It produces a high yield. This potato variety is a favorite for gardeners and commercial farmers. This variety has the best blight-free yield organically. Acoustic varieties are a breeze to farm because they require minimum effort and no additional chemicals to control blight.
Kennebec potatoes are a good all-purpose potato with white flesh. These potatoes mature in 80 days and are a good storage potato.
Red Luna is a red-skinned potato has yellow flesh and is prized for making distinctive potato salads and fries. This early potato is ready in 68 days.
Setanta is a red-skinned main crop potato variety that can survive wet conditions without a scratch is second on the list. Potato blight does not stand a chance against Setanta as it has the highest tolerance. Use Setanta variety to make jackets, roast, and chips dishes. It is easy to grow and has excellent taste.
Sarpo Mira is a blight-resistant potato variety grows well in many types of soils and offers excellent slug resistance. The potato has a reddish hue and usually assumes an oval shape. This variety grows brilliant foliage that chokes out pesky weeds before they become a problem.
Global Impact
“A potato with durable host plant resistance to late blight will contribute to food security for developing countries throughout the world.” https://www.potatonewstoday.com/2022/02/22/late-blight-disease-resistant-potatoes-msu-receives-13-million-usaid-award-for-research/
How to grow potatoes
Macomb, we can plant potatoes in the spring! This article contains helpful details (except we don’t plant in the fall): https://dengarden.com/gardening/How-To-Grow-Irish-Potatoes-In-A-Container
