How to deal with late blight on potatoes - tips on drugs and agricultural technology

Hello! Since early spring, his brother asked to share potato harvest in the fall.

I promised what would be done, but I almost failed. And blame for everything was late blight. I was very lucky that I almost immediately discovered the first signs of its appearance.

I had a couple of ways ready that I immediately put into action. The situation was reversed at the root - the crop was saved, and a contented brother took a dozen bags with him. Want to learn how to deal with late blight on potatoes? Then it's time to learn about the most effective ways.

Fight against potato late blight - chemical and biological agents

Late blight, or brown rot of potato is a very common solanaceous disease, which affects strawberries, buckwheat, castor oil plants to a lesser extent. The name is a translation from 2 Greek words: “plant” “I destroy”. In Russia, the loss of potato from the disease is ≈ 4 million tons per year.

Tuber infection can come (as often happens) from infected tops: when it rains with water or when it comes into contact with potatoes during harvesting. In rainy and warm weather, the disease spreads rapidly and can affect the entire field.

Characteristic symptoms of the disease

Potatoes are planted and the first beautiful green shoots have already appeared. Plants are gradually gaining strength. Bushes become large spreading. Be a good harvest, but one day you suddenly notice that your potato beds have changed, the bushes are no longer so attractive.

Symptoms of the disease are darkening on parts of plants, later spots grow, in the tubers - the mycelium develops inland. Secondary infection often settles on the affected organs and completes the destruction of the crop, turning the potato into a putrefactive mass. In humid weather, a light coating of fruit-bearing mycelium develops below the leaf.

Facts from the story. Late blight caused the great famine in Ireland in 1845-1849. For several years, the country's population decreased by a quarter ... To save themselves, people tried to emigrate. On ships that previously served to transport slaves, weakened by hunger and disease, people sailed to America.

Mortality on ships reached 20-30% ... These depleted vessels were called coffin-ships, coffins, literally, coffin-ships ... Songs are still sung about the Great Potato Famine, monuments stand, people remember ...

Control measures and disease prevention

In suitable weather, the disease develops very quickly, so first of all pay attention to the prevention of the disease.

Selection of resistant varieties. Absolutely resistant does not exist, and yet the difference in the susceptibility of different varieties is significant.

Removing post-harvest residues. These serve as a source of infection. It also helps mowing the tops before digging and removing it from the field: with diseased leaves, there may well be uninfected tubers. Until they meet with a sick tops.

Crop rotation. We take into account that the pathogen, as described above, also develops on other nightshade ones (also on buckwheat, castor oil and strawberries, but to a lesser extent on them), so planting potatoes after tomatoes or eggplant is a bad idea. Crop rotation is one of the important measures in the prevention of various plant diseases.

Early cleaning. With holding the tubers for a while in a dry place for ripening. It helps, especially in rainy weather conducive to the development of the fungus.

Avoid overly thickened landings. In such cases, the disease develops faster. Hilling. In addition to normal goals, this technique also protects the tubers from infection.

Choosing a place to land. In lowering the terrain, humidity is higher, moisture often stagnates, which is late blight. Do not overdo it with liming! Favors the disease ...

Spatial isolation. As different potato fields, and fields of other plants of the solanaceous family - tomato, eggplant, because late blight also affects them.

We use top dressing wisely. The introduction of nitrogen drives the tops and often increases the yield, but increases the incidence. But the introduction of potassium or micronutrient fertilizers, in particular copper - on the contrary, protects plants.
We begin the first treatments before the onset of signs of the disease!

This is especially important if the weather is rainy, foggy. The appearance of edible mushrooms in the forests is very approximate, but nevertheless a sign: it is time to start processing.

And sprayed periodically, once every two weeks or a decade. How to process potatoes from late blight? Any fungicides, the choice is yours - in the store, at the companies or at the bazaar, the assortment is huge, we buy and deposit according to the instructions.

On the other hand, what if it helps? So, sprayed:

Iodine, vitriol, superphosphate, you can also add potassium fertilizer - this is not only and not so much protection against late blight, but also foliar feeding of plants.

It’s hard to say which is better, all companies praise their own, but still any drugs undergo thorough testing before they go on sale. And further.We look through and remove the diseased leaves, it is clear, if time and planting area allows, you won’t handle a huge field like that.

How to deal with late blight on potatoes

Phytophthora is a big problem for gardeners who grow potatoes and other nightshade crops. This fungal disease affects all parts of the plant from flowers to fruits. Spores of this fungus develop better at elevated temperature and humidity.

Under these conditions, spores can germinate in a few hours and infect the entire plant in a day or two. At temperatures below 15 degrees Celsius and high humidity, spores germinate in 1-3 days.

If it happened that the potato was struck by late blight, then you need to react in time and reduce future losses.

Basic preventive methods

Disease prevention is the best way to get a quality crop. Therefore, starting in the fall, the gardener must make at least 2 - 3 main events.

In our area, late blight is not a big threat if you carefully sort out the seed, while discarding diseased tubers. Severe frosts destroy most of the pathogens of late blight in the soil. The main thing is that no organic solanaceous residues remain on the personal plot (stems, old potatoes).

It is necessary to regularly conduct seed shifts, it is desirable that nightshade crops are not grown in the same place for at least 2-3 years. If this is not done, then it is necessary to disinfect the soil with Bordeaux liquid, especially in the southern regions, where winters are quite warm.

Pick early resistant or early potato varieties. To date, a lot of potato varieties resistant to late blight have been bred, but they have poor taste.

Potato in our area is blighted mainly in late July or early August, so using early varieties, you can harvest until the moment when late blight develops.

Chemical processing of potatoes

Heavily affected potato bushes are very difficult to cure, in most cases this already makes no sense, they are easier to simply destroy to prevent the further spread of the disease.

To treat mild infection of potato with late blight, special preparations must be used at various vegetative stages of plant development.

At this point, you can use: arsedil (80 grams per 15 liters of water), MC Ridomil (40 grams per 15 liters) and Osksikhom (30 grams per 15 liters of water). The first treatment is not necessary, since in most cases, late blight in our area does not infect young potatoes.

After flowering, potatoes need to be processed 3-4 times with special preparations in the interval of not more than 1 week. For this, drugs are used: D-vitamin M-45 (30 grams per 15 liters of water), copper chloroxide (60 g per 15 liters of water), cuproxate (40 grams per 15 liters of water).

The most effective, but quite expensive is the prevention and treatment of late blight of potatoes with drugs of the company Syngenta (Syngenta). Such measures are applied only in case of total infection of potato with late blight.

Often plants are treated with growth stimulants that increase potato resistance to late blight. The drugs are best suited for this role: oxyhumate - 150 ml, ecosil - 5 ml, Epin - 3 ml, epin plus - 3 ml or ecosil VE - 5 ml per 15 l of water.

Non chemical treatment

Many consumers do not want to consume potatoes that have been processed with a large number of chemical pest and disease protection products. To develop new methods of controlling phytophthora, it is necessary to know the development cycle of this disease. Therefore, gardeners often use non-chemical (folk) methods and means of controlling late blight, these include the following.

A proven tool is a daily infusion of 100 grams of finely chopped garlic in 10 liters of water. After insisting, the solution must be filtered and sprayed with potatoes. Such treatments must be repeated every week for one month.

To combat late blight, a sour-milk product is often used, which is prepared as follows: 1 liter of sour kefir is diluted in 10 liters of water.

After this, the solution is mixed and infused for several hours. Next, the solution needs to be filtered and the plants sprayed with it. Treatment should be repeated every week until the end of the period of active development of the disease.

Bordeaux liquid is the most common and quite effective tool for the prevention of fungal diseases in various plants, including potatoes.

Bordeaux liquid is prepared simply using the available elements (copper sulfate - 100 grams (dissolved in 5 liters of warm water), quicklime - 100 grams (dissolved in 5 liters of water)).

After all three solutions have cooled, they must be mixed to obtain a final solution of 10 liters. This mixture of potatoes is processed 2 times: in late July and early August with an interval of 1-1.5 weeks.

During the active development of late blight (late July - early August), a bed of potatoes must be covered with one of the materials before the appearance of dew: agrofibre, plantex, agrin, spunbond, agrotex, lutrasil. In the morning, shelters need to be removed. There will be no infection unless the potato bushes are wet with dew.

Before rain, potatoes also need to be covered during this period.
Mulchuvan soil light material to reduce heating of the bottom of the plants. It is effective to cover the soil on the bed with potatoes with a thin layer of lime (1-2 mm).

Therefore, it is better to use simple preventive measures so that you do not waste time and money later on fighting this insidious and very tenacious disease.

Phytophthora on potatoes: how to fight?

Potato late blight is one of the most common and most unpleasant diseases of the queen of the fields. Of course, the destructive effect of potato late blight cannot be compared with late blight of tomatoes, when in the blink of an eye the whole crop mows.

But if you neglect the prevention and treatment of late blight of potatoes - the crop will definitely not please you.

Symptoms and methods of infection

Late blight is a fungal disease, that is, it spreads through spores. The fungus feels best of all during periods of prolonged wet weather. In this case, late blight can spread over sufficiently large distances without loss of activity, which entails uncontrolled infection of huge areas of potatoes.

In this case, the potatoes are covered with brown-gray hard spots, under which the flesh becomes reddish.

Blight can infect potatoes in several main ways:

1. When using diseased planting material - it will serve as a hotbed of fungus, which will soon spread to healthy tubers;
2. When harvesting potatoes, when the tubers are in contact with diseased tops;
3. When stems and leaves of potatoes are damaged, spores of phytophthora are washed off during rain, penetrating the soil and affecting tubers.

Blight prevention

Given that late blight is treated mainly with fungicides, of which we have already heard about the negative effects on the human body, it is most reasonable to take care to prevent late blight on your potato field.

First of all, worry about quality seed. Moreover - sprout it for a week at a temperature of 8-10 degrees before planting potatoes in the soil. Thus, the growth rate of potatoes will increase, which will protect your crop from the possibility of infection in the later stages.

Immediately before planting potatoes, process potatoes with specially formulated medications - for example, agate-25 or immunocytophyte.

When growing potatoes, remove weeds and affected tops in a timely manner, do not allow the potatoes to come into contact with infected stems during harvesting. Before storing potatoes, be sure to dry it - at least five days, ideally 2-3 weeks.

There are several more nuances when choosing a place and planting potatoes. So, try to choose sites without sharp lowlands. As we already wrote, late blight loves moisture, and moisture is concentrated just in the lowlands.

To increase the immunity of the plant, you can spray it with a decoction of horsetail or nettle infusion. If the likelihood of contracting late blight of a potato is high, you can treat the plantings with copper sulfate (2 grams per bucket of water) or with a fungicide according to the instructions (oxychrome, arceride, ridomil MC). As a preventative measure, it will be enough to process the potatoes once before flowering.

And yet - do not forget to feed the plants with mineral fertilizers, this will increase their resistance to late blight by about two times. The main thing is not to overdo it with nitrogen, which without the support of phosphorus and potassium just facilitates the spread of this disease.

Methods of struggle

If late blight struck your potato - you have to fight it. There are folk methods - absolutely non-chemical and harmless. For example, foliar processing of potatoes with milk with a small addition of iodine helps.

You can also spray potatoes three times a month (stop 2 weeks before harvesting) with the aforementioned solution of copper sulfate (2 grams per bucket of water). Processing with Bordeaux liquid (1%), manganese solution (at least three times) or copper sulfate (per 20 grams of water in a bucket) helps.

And another very important point - you need to choose potato varieties that are resistant to late blight. You will not be mistaken if you choose a variety that is suitable specifically for your climatic conditions.

Is it possible to save the crop?

Summer 2016 in our area turned out to be wet but warm, creating ideal conditions for the development of late blight. The end of July, and the first signs of this fungal disease are already noted in greenhouses and on potato strips in the form of separate foci.

What to do?

Phytophthora is a fungal disease of plants. The causative agent is a fungus. The main symptom of late blight is blackening, dark spots, rot on leaves and stems. Spores of the fungus from the leaves can fall into the ground, infecting potato tubers. Instances that lie close to the surface of the earth are damaged during growth.

What experts recommend doing:

• Start with prevention - apply phosphorus-potassium fertilizers. Ash is perfect for this.
• Spud potatoes several times a season. A thick layer of earth will protect against the spread of fungus.
• About 10 days before digging the crop, cut the tops so that the spores of the fungus do not fall on the fruits.
• Do not hesitate in harvesting, harvest potatoes in dry weather.
• Grow resistant varieties and plant only healthy tubers.
• Plant tomatoes, eggplant, peppers and potatoes at different ends of the plot. All nightshade are susceptible to infection with late blight. And if the fungus hit the tomatoes, it will immediately spread to the potatoes and so on.
• To process potatoes with modern chemical preparations from late blight.
• Treat potatoes with folk remedies.

What to process?

Authors of videos on Youtube recommend chemical preparations "Ridomil Gold", "Skor", "Sherlan" for processing potatoes from phytophthora.

When to process? The first time you can process potatoes with the drug "Ridomil Gold" - at the time of leaflet formation, before flowering, during the period of active growth of tops. The second time - after 2 weeks. This is followed by treatment with another drug (with another active substance), for example, “Skor”.

Also two treatments with an interval of 2 weeks. Fungal diseases tend to get used to the same fungicide. Processing is best done in dry weather.

Between treatments, these drugs provide long-lasting protection to plants: already infected leaves and new growth. Therefore, we can conclude that these drugs can be used if late blight on potatoes has already appeared.

The chemical preparation “Sherlan” kills phytophthora spores. Acts almost like a disinfectant. Provides protection at many stages of fungal development. It is rain-resistant and is absorbed by leaves within 1 hour after treatment.

Some authors recommend Bordeaux liquid for potatoes: copper sulfate + lime (sets are sold in gardening stores.

After flowering, it is permissible to process potatoes 3-4 times at intervals of 7 days with special preparations: D-vitamin M-45 (30 grams per 15 liters of water), copper chloride (60 g per 15 liters of water), cuproxate (40 grams per 15 liters of water) .

We advise you to study the information about this in more detail in other sources.
Fighting late blight when the tubers are already grown is pointless. The last chemical treatment is permissible no later than 20 days before harvesting.

It is better to take control of the disease at the very beginning of the season. It is worth remembering that prevention is better than cure.

Folk remedy

There were few sensible folk remedies that could successfully be used to combat late blight on potatoes. Mostly folk remedies are used from late blight on tomatoes. But in one source, finally, I got a recipe for a solution. According to the author, quite effective:

After all three solutions have individually cooled, they are combined. It turns out a solution of 10 liters. They process potatoes twice: in late July and early August with an interval of 1-1.5 weeks.

Specially, we are not fighting with late blight on potatoes. Even in the wettest summers, it was not a danger to our harvest. The only measure is mowing and harvesting tops 3 days before digging potatoes. It happened that a potato that had had late blight in the summer was poorly stored.Then all the tubers in the basement were sorted out, rejecting the sick.

Phytophthora on potatoes: how to protect, how to fight

Many plantings suffer from a terrible disease - late blight. Fungal spores are present in the soil, and can also get to the site from the outside. Phytophthora spreads very quickly, affecting all parts of the plant. Our article will tell you how to deal with this disease on potatoes.

Manifestations of the disease

A literal translation of the name of the disease reads: "I destroy plants." Phytophthora is more susceptible to members of the nightshade family: tomatoes, potatoes, eggplant and pepper.

You may notice signs of fungus on strawberries, buckwheat, and other crops. "Symptoms" are familiar to most gardeners firsthand, but such information will still be useful.

Manifestations of late blight:

1. The aerial part of the plant becomes brown.
2. The fleshy part of the leaves curls and dries.
3. Potato tubers have spots that grow inland.
4. The plant dies, tubers are not suitable for food.

Successfully cure late blight or at least slow down its development is possible only in the early stages. At the same time, the fungus spreads simply with astonishing speed and in a short time can destroy the entire crop.

Annually losses from this scourge make up 20% of all plantings. Of course, you should not put up with such injustice, because most of the threatening factors can be eliminated on your own.

Landing Prevention

A characteristic feature of potato plantings is their abundance. Even in a small summer cottage, it makes no sense to grow 10 to 20 potato bushes, so processing a large area is difficult.

That is why among the main ways to protect the crop from the ubiquitous fungus, prevention is of great importance. To do this, you need to know that phytophthora spores do not like sunlight and low temperatures.

They also prefer insulated areas, so tomatoes are affected more often in greenhouses than when grown in open ground. If you apply all these factors to a potato crop, you can highlight the following prevention tips. How to protect potatoes from late blight is indicated below.

Maintain a comfortable distance between plants. Dense planting is an important risk factor. If in the case of a similar situation with tomatoes, you can cut off excess leaves and pinch a plant, then on a potato field this method will be time-consuming and pointless.

Mulching the soil. A very effective way of prevention. For a complete result, the mulch layer should be at least 10 centimeters in order to minimize the contact of the leaves with the ground.
Mulching Potato Soil

Quality planting material. If you use infected potatoes, naturally, a healthy plant will not be able to grow from it. It is good to pretreat tubers from late blight. It is also advisable to acquire potato resistant to late blight, which will provide additional protection against adversity.

Soil preparation. An important factor in prevention. The landing site should not be chosen in a lowland where moisture can accumulate, which provokes the disease. In addition, do not get involved in liming the soil, which also affects the development of the fungus.

The correct calculation of fertilizing. Do not rely on chance and sprinkle fertilizer “by eye”.The lack of minerals adversely affects the health of plants, and also provokes a large degree of late blight.

On the other hand, an overabundance is also not suitable, because, for example, an excess of nitrogen provokes the formation of tops, makes it powerless before infection. Among the elements - protectors, copper and potassium proved to be the best.

Optimal neighborhood. Potato plantings can be limited to rows of crops that are resistant to infection, as well as periodically changed so that harmful strains do not accumulate in the ground.

You can’t plant other nightshade crops nearby, and ideally change their location every year. It is possible to return to growing potatoes no earlier than in three to four years, but in practice this rule is difficult to fulfill.

Timely harvesting. Digging out root crops is best in dry and not sunny weather with technical ripeness of the fruit. If you wait for rains and dampness, the crop is guaranteed to be damaged by spores of the fungus and even with proper storage it is unlikely to survive until spring.

It will also be useful to learn about what can be planted after potatoes. The basic rules of agricultural technology of potatoes do not contradict the recommendations given. This culture is relatively unpretentious and will give a stable harvest even in bad summers.

Preventive measures have shown themselves very well, but what to do when the first signs of the disease are detected on the plant. Nobody is going to give away the crop of insidious late blight, there are special methods of dealing with such a scourge.

Folk processing methods

Such methods are harmless to humans, but ineffective in case of severe damage. It is best to combine prophylaxis with regular spraying than to save the crop with all kinds of chemicals later.

The best recipes from late blight for potatoes:

1. Milk solution. For 10 liters of water, a liter of milk or kefir is taken. Serum diluted 1: 1 can be used. Dairy products form a thin film on the leaves that does not allow the fungus to penetrate. It is necessary to spray every 10 to 14 days before harvesting.
2. Iodine solution. The standard dosage is 15 to 20 drops per 10 liters of water. With this component, you can supplement the milk mixture, but can be used separately. Spraying frequency - at least three times per season.
3. Garlic infusion. To do this, brew 100 grams of chopped garlic in 10 liters of water. After a day, the spray solution is ready.
4. Infusion of mushroom - tinder fungus. Brew about 100 grams of the crushed mushroom with a liter of boiling water and leave for 24 hours. Then strain the mixture and dilute with 9 liters of water.

You can dust the plantings with wood ash. For prevention, be sure to add a tablespoon of ash to each well. This simple and inexpensive tool is effective against phytophthora, but it may not be enough.

Special preparations

Purchased funds, as a rule, are more effective and do not require frequent use. On the other hand, this is an additional chemical burden on the crop and financial investments.

Overview of special preparations for late blight of potato:

• Copper sulfate. For 10 liters of water, you need to take 200 grams of the substance.
• Bordeaux fluid. An improved analogue of the previous mixture. Prepared from an equal amount of ingredients (200 grams), dissolved in 10 liters of water. For a more efficient preparation, it is better to separate the components by mixing the solutions together. It will also be useful to learn about how to use the herbicide Lapis lazuli, and to learn more about the instructions for using the product.
• The following mixture is also prepared based on these components. For this, a teaspoon of copper sulfate, potassium permanganate and boric acid is separately mixed. The resulting solutions are combined, the yield of the mixture is 10 liters.
• Oksikhom. A broad-spectrum fungicide.For 10 liters of water, you need to take 20 grams of the mixture. The last spraying is carried out 20 days before harvesting potatoes.
• Arceride. It is bred at the rate of 50 grams per 10 liters of water. The number of sprayings should not exceed three times. It can be used for other crops.
• Ridomil Year of MC. The drug is a wide spectrum of action. It is used in a similar way with "Arceride".

When buying a suitable product, it should be borne in mind that a certain amount of time must pass before the harvest. Processed potatoes, as a rule, are not suitable for food for some time, therefore, with such processing it is important to follow the dosage and instructions for use.

Disease resistant potato varieties

An important factor affecting the degree of damage to potatoes is its variety. It has long been noticed that even the most productive potatoes degenerate over time and become small and small. The same rule can be applied to late blight.

Suitable varieties of late blight potatoes:

Late blight is an insidious disease that can destroy a plant in a matter of days. Potatoes, tomatoes, peppers and eggplants, as well as slightly other crops, are susceptible to them.

To determine the best way to protect against such an ailment, you need to know the enemy in person, and also adhere to conditions comfortable for the plant to grow.

How to deal with late blight on potatoes

Phytophthora (Phytophthora) is a fungal disease affecting plants, shrubs and trees. Seeing symptoms early and treating a progressive infection is not easy. The consequences of lesions on the potato can be seen in the photo.

Symptoms of infection and phytophthora provocative factors:

The disease begins with the aerial part, inevitably passing into the roots. The fruits are covered through with putrid foci. The situation is aggravated by a favorable climate - warm, humid weather.

In such conditions, a secondary bacterial infection develops, massively affecting the entire landing.

The spores of the pathogen are carried by precipitation, wind. The fungal mycelium remains in the tubers, which germinate safely in the spring. Often, gardeners themselves create "paradise" for late blight, by the following actions:

1. Planting potatoes for more than two years in a row. If it is not possible to change the site, then use siderat plants. For example, green peas. By early May, green manure is plowed into the soil and early potatoes are planted. In August, after harvesting, the field is sown with mustard or oilseed radish. Before frost, the field is plowed again. The plot can be divided for varieties with different ripening dates, so the land can be continuously healed by ground cover plants. In autumn, the field is sown with winter oats and rye.
2. In the spring they are smelled under mid-early varieties. After harvesting medium-late potatoes, the field is given under watercress. By winter, lettuce is smelled into the ground.
3. Over lime. The substance promotes the active reproduction of the fungus. To reduce acidity, it is better to use deoxidizing siderates: mustard, oats, rye, lupine, fatseliya.
4. Placing a bed in lowlands and on heavy soils.Even high furrows will not protect potatoes from late blight in places with constant stagnation of moisture.

Chemistry against late blight

The parasite is able to develop resistance to drugs. In the fungal population, there are strains that do not respond to modern potent agents. Usually fungicides alternate.

Spraying preparations:

Preparations for application to the soil:

• Glyocladin It is decomposed into landing holes (1 tablet). Prevents the development of mycoses, rot.
• Baikal Em. It contains beneficial microflora that kills the mycelium of late blight and other types of pathogenic fungi. The soil is shed with a solution a couple of weeks before planting the crop.
• Apirin B. The bacterium Bacillus subtilis kills late blight and other fungi.
• Copper Chloride. The solution is normally poured into the wells.
• Colloidal sulfur. The solution is effective in combating spider mites (2 tbsp. Per 10 liters of water).

Folk methods of combating phytophthorosis

Any chem. substances can accumulate in plant tissues. To get environmental products from your garden, there are many ways without aggressive drugs.

Do not underestimate late blight. The fungus can cause large-scale infections. Not only potatoes suffer from it, but also other nightshade, as well as peppers, eggplant, buckwheat, strawberries, cucumbers, onions.

Carefully sort and dress the seeds, inspect the plants for the first signs of the disease, acquire resistant varieties, take urgent actions.

How to destroy potato diseases

How nice it is when you come to your favorite summer house to see all planted plants in “good health” - they grow well and develop, they have no shortage of lighting and nutrition, and at the end of the season you expect to get a good crop of vegetables from your garden, in including tasty, crumbly potatoes.

One of them - late blight of potato - almost the most common and dangerous fungal infection of this crop.The causative agent of potato late blight is oomycetes (mycelial organisms) Phytophthora infestans, of the genus Phytophthora.

How to recognize this disease in the early stages?

On some lower leaves dark brown spots appear at their edges, which have borders with the still healthy part of the leaf in the form of sections of a lighter color. On the underside of the leaves in this place, a furry white coating is clearly visible - spores of the fungus.

In a few days, planting potatoes can be completely affected - the leaves turn brown, curl, dry, only dark sticking stems remain. Affected tubers become covered with dark brown hard spots, rot spreads deeper into the tubers, and neighboring tubers become infected.

Potato protection

The risk of this disease is especially high in humid weather (air humidity more than 75% for two or more days, dew, fogs), as well as with significant changes in day and night temperatures - under such weather conditions, preventive measures should be taken against late blight.

In order to strengthen the plant's defenses, timely top dressing with complex fertilizers, as well as “green” fertilizers (nettle infusion, horsetail broth) is needed.

Hilling is not only one of the methods of care, but also a preventive measure of protection against late blight. Especially when planting in the rows will soon begin to close - you need to carry out a high hilling.

This will help prevent infection of plants, since the disease begins from the edges of leaf plates densely in contact with each other - in combination with excess moisture, a favorable microclimate is created for the development of fungal infections.

Spraying before flowering with a weak solution of copper sulphate (per 10 liters of water - 2 grams of dry matter), as well as with any systemic fungicide (arceride, oxychrome, ridomil MC) according to the instructions on the package. As a preventative measure, one treatment will suffice, but if signs of the disease have already been identified, then repeat 3-4 times per season.

Blight control

Damaged leaves need to be torn off and destroyed (burned). Spray with chemical preparations every 7-10 days - Ditan M-45, cuproxate, copper chloroxide - according to the instructions, alternating these preparations, using each of them no more than 2 times.

The best way to prevent this disease is to plant healthy material. Tubers must be carefully discarded already at the time of harvest, damaged ones should not be thrown away, but burned. It is good to dry the harvested crop and again sort it out before storing it.

It is important to choose the right places for planting - sunny, well-ventilated plantations that change every 1-2 years. Arrange beds with early potatoes at a sufficient distance from late varieties and other nightshade crops to avoid infection from each other.