Digging Into The Potato Season

Planting

In Scotland, Eric Anderson, Senior Agronomist at Scottish Agronomy Ltd, looks after 7,500ha of both ware and seed crops and reports the planting season was very easy and progressed well, with crops emerging evenly.

Toby Hogsbjerg, farm manager of The Wicken Farms, Kings Lynn is growing 75ha of potatoes on the 940ha ring fenced estate. Here, the land, which ranges from blowing sand to sandy clay loam, is fully irrigated.

Planting also went well for the 300ha of potatoes that Lucinda Smith, Agronomist with Dyson Farming looks after near Nocton in Lincolnshire, where the recently opened Dyson Farming Research Centre is situated.

Toby said, “It was the easiest planting season that we have ever had, we were done in 11 days, soil conditions were good and we had no rain breaks until we finished on the 10th of April.

“We do as little as possible to the fields to get them ready for potatoes. We cover crop from July, graze with sheep and then the cover crop is destroyed. This year the fields are light, cover crops did well and we didn’t get rain so we were in with a Sumo trio followed by a ridger and then the de-stoner.”

Whilst for Lucinda, planting was slightly delayed to accommodate the changing weather pattern, “We have a large variety of soil types, so ground preparation is tailored to the individual fields. We began planting just before Easter, slightly later than in previous years as we were waiting for the soils to warm up and finished on the 10th of May.”
 

Varieties

This year Lucinda has a dozen varieties in the ground, predominantly for pre-pack. Dual purpose varieties like Elland are valued as they spread the risk.

She said, “We can grow Elland on Nocton Heath where we struggle with stone content so might get some bruising but the skin finish is good, we assess it at harvest to see whether it would make packing or not.”

Toby’s potatoes are all for processing; Premier and Desiree for potato waffles, and King Russets and Royal, for French fries.
 

Blight programme

In Scotland, Privest (ametoctradin + potassium phosphonates) features in Eric’s blight programmes, “We use Privest 3 times at the beginning of the season in an alternating fashion, typically sprays 1, 3 and 5.

“It has a unique co-formulation that there is no known resistance. It also mixes well so we can mix it with oil, for example, Newman’s Crop Spray 11E, for mosaic virus control.

“Within the programme we will be using other products including oxathiapiprolin. The guidance is that we don’t use a Carboxylic Acid Amide (CAA)  either before or after oxathiapiprolin so basically we can‘t use any Revus (mandipropamid) until spray 6 in that context if we are using oxathiapiprolin at sprays 2 and 4 so there are real reasons for using Privest at sprays 1, 3 and 5.

“The potassium phosphonate in Privest also acts as a potent defence elicitor so I am keen to obtain the elicitor effect early in the programme.”

For Toby, the farms’ onion and sugar beet crops is where their most likely source of blight will be, so he has to ensure all volunteers in these crops are destroyed.

He said, “When you are spraying every 7 days and irrigating, the risk level is down to getting your product management right and making sure you are covering every acre you have and everywhere there are potential volunteers.

“I utilise Dyson Farming’s research site for potato agronomy advice and through them build a programme around the financial data and the different modes of action, to give the best possible coverage in a sensible programme.”

Like Eric, Toby will be alternating Privest in his programme, “Sprays 3, 5 and 7 will be Privest and I will fill the gaps according to the blight pressure.”

“We value Privest because it’s different to everything else, so it brings really good protection, especially when the crop is growing fast which is one of its main benefits.”

In Lincolnshire, Lucinda has access to on farm weather stations to work out if the area is in a blight period, however, she finds the James Hutton Fight Against Blight website convenient to use. She said, “I am a Blight Scout and so send samples to the James Hutton Institute if I see blight so they can genotype them but last year, I didn’t find any.”

The adaptability of phytophthora infestans makes it a very difficult organism to cope with and so growers need to know what genotypes of blight are in the crop to help inform spray decisions.

“We started blight programmes when the crop was at rosette stage, and we tend to  keep the spray interval to 7 days, we don’t push it to 10 days as you can soon get in a muddle if the weather changes.

“We do have an outline plan but we keep it fairly flexible depending on blight pressure, something with tuber blight activity first just in case there is blight in the seed, and then systemic products at rapid growth, with protectants at full canopy and then something for tuber blight at the end.

“Everyone’s margins are obviously tight at the moment, so we are trying to tailor the sprays but it is hard especially now without mancozeb. Fluazinam does have a place as a mix partner and I will use Privest in the programme because it has 2 modes of action and if the pressure isn’t too high, I’ll use it on its own.”

The BASF Perfecting Potatoes Together campaign also caught up with grower David Bell, David Cooke from the James Hutton Institute, and BASF Agronomist Scott Milne, to find out how the season is going and share some top recommendations to give potato crops the best chance. Watch the video here.