“Later planting dates resulted in decreased yield and tuber quality and increased percentage of disease tubers.”Ĭultivars that had the highest tolerance to southern potato blight coupled with earlier planting dates included ‘Atlantic’, ‘Snowden’ and ‘Accumulator’, all chipping potatoes. “In general, less in-field southern potato blight incidence was observed for the earlier planting dates,” said Rideout. Rideout and Gonzalez found that the earlier the planting date, the less incidence of disease was recorded, along with higher yields and higher tuber quality. The cultivars studied include ‘Superior’, ‘Red Norland’, ‘Dark Red Norland’, ‘Envol’, ‘Atlantic’, ‘Snowden’, ‘Yukon Gold’, ‘Russet Burbank’, ‘Adirondack Blue’ and ‘Accumulator’. Photo credit: Virginia Techįour planting dates: early March, late March, mid-April and mid-May were chosen. Potato plants infected with Southern potato blight. They also harvested the tubers, visually inspecting them for disease and calculating marketable yield. In the two-year study ( GS17-177), “ Effect of Cultural Practices in Controlling Southern Blight of Potato in the Mid-Atlantic Region,” the researchers arranged field trials in a split-plot design with four replications, inoculated the fields which had no known history of southern potato blight, and studied the disease incidence of the plants over a week to two-week period. “There is no known potato cultivar resistant and traditional management relying on fumigants and fungicides has provided inconsistent results.” “Over the past decade, occurrence of potato southern blight has increased on the Eastern Shore of Virginia and surrounding areas,” said Rideout. In a Southern Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SSARE) Graduate Student Grant, plant pathologist Steven Rideout and graduate student Jose Garcia Gonzalez, studied 10 commercial cultivars with no known resistance to southern potato blight over four planting dates to determine which planting date and which cultivars provided the best management option for controlling the disease. The fungal disease, caused by the soil born pathogen Sclerotium rolfsii, affects the stems of the plants and produces lesions on the tubers, impacting quality and yields. PAINTER, Virginia – Earlier planting dates coupled with disease-tolerant cultivars of potatoes are recommended strategies to suppress southern potato blight, according to Virginia Tech researchers. Harvesting potatoes (Photo credit: Virginia Tech)
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