Rotting Potatoes?

Saturday wasn't too bad being sunny and windy for most of the day. It was cool in the early hours of the morning with the temperature falling to just 9.3°C. We had a few light showers from early evening onwards.

On the plot I thought it was about time I started lifting some of our early potatoes. The tops haven't died down completely but they are showing signs that they’re reaching this stage. As I’ve got lots of potatoes to lift I thought I’d make a start.

At first I was a little surprised because as I lifted some of the potatoes I initially thought some of the tubers were affected by blight. The tops however hadn’t sown any signs so I was a little puzzled. 

This is a root of Winston showing the condition of some of the potatoes as lifted. The soil is not as wet as it looks from this photograph but there is little doubt that the soil has been waterlogged for considerable periods of time this summer and I think that this has caused some of the tubers to rot.

Swift (left) - Winston (centre) and Premiere (right)

I would reckon that about 10% of the crop were like this with the rest in good condition.

Back in spring we bought three extra varieties of potatoes to trial. These were Vales Emerald, Casablanca and Marilyn. These have now all been lifted and the harvesting is summarised here.