Blight 2023

Anyone got it yet? Pretty sure I've found it on the leaves of Kestrel potatoes and the nearby Maskotka bush tomatoes. The potato foliage has been cut down and I've cleaned the tomatoes of any spotty foliage. I'm going to check on the Cara potatoes in the front garden, though they are blight resistant so fingers crossed. Must be the earliest I've ever seen it! Luckily a lot of the tomatoes I'm growing outside are blight resistant, but it would be incredibly disappointing for blight to take hold so early.

Not here yet but expecting it any day with the daily showers we've been having. I'm also growing some but not all blight resistant varieties outdoors, although last year the blight got into the gh.

Unfortunately the blight keeps spreading and I'm picking off infected material every day. Even worse, it's now on a couple of plants in the greenhouse and I don't think I've ever seen it in the greenhouse before. Unless the weather starts clearing up it's looking like a grim year for tomatoes and potatoes.

I can see from here - https://blight.hutton.ac.uk/BlightReport - that it's been in the area since early July. I remember seeing confirmed cases quite close to me last year too, but the hot weather seemed to keep it at bay.

I checked my potato plot this morning. These are the Maris Piper maincrop:

   

Looks like the cool damp weather has brought the blight with it. I'll ask Mrs H to cut the tops off later today (I can't do it myself, doctor's orders ). The crop underneath should be unaffected, I'll dig them up in a couple of weeks.

Anyone else suffering yet?

In case you're puzzled - I've put TMTT's Tomato blight posts and Martin's Potato blight post together in this new Blight 2023 thread.

As you were..............

Welcome to the blight club, Martin. 

My earlies and 2nd earlies have died off and need harvesting when I get time. I don't think blight was a problem with them this year. The ones I've dug so far have been really good. My main crop are still looking good, variety Carolus which is supposed to be blight resistant and also Harmony that make really good baked potatoes and keep really well but are also prized by slugs. I've also got some Alouette in that are also blight resistant and also slug prone.

Just testing!

Carolus and Alouette are both on my list of potatoes I want to grow. They have some of the highest tuber blight resistance of any variety on the AHDB database, equal to Sarpo Mira's 9/10. Apart from Sarpo Mira the only variety with good resistance at my local garden centre was Cara, which scores a bit lower at 7/10. For reference, Maris Piper only scores 5/10.

You can search for potato disease resistance values here - https://potatoes.agricrops.org/varieties...ced_search

We were blighted back in June so I cut all my tomatoes down to the ground, about a third have regrown with a flowers appearing. It has been cool and wet since our drought broke in May but we have 2 weeks of hot and dry weather forecast so I'm hopeful of a small harvest.