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Thursday, October 18, 2012

Potato Blight

I seem to be posting comments on Twitter more than here, and there was an interesting exchange of tweets including Monty Don, about potato blight, or more especially the voice of corporate thinking, expressing a view on the subject, as reported in the Telegraph:

"Allan Stevenson, Chairman of the Potato Council, told trade journal The Grocer, that people should be buying potatoes from the supermarket rather than growing their own as this may help spread blight."

For more see here

It makes you wonder what kind of world view these people have doesn't it?

There are many options available to small-scale growers, not least growing blight resistant varieties (my Sarpo Mira rows came through, whereas less resistant ones succumbed).

With changes in weather patterns  and perhaps more frequent wet summers, we may spend more time living with "Smith periods" so everyone needs to brush up on combating blight - and no, that does not mean giving up growing potatoes, but is may mean thinking differently.

A site worth looking into (I registered):

Blightwatch