On Thu, 18 Aug 2005 04:41:07 +0100, Jaques d'Alltrades
wrote:



Regarding sulphuric acid as mentioned earlier,I seem to remember from my
youth and doing casual work on farms that potato crop was spread with
a weak
solution of this to kill off the shaws( maybe a Scottish word) before
harvesting the crop

I understood it to be a very strong solution. The idea is to kill the
shaws/haulm (and any wildlife amongst it - most horribly) and leave the
potatoes in the ground for the skins to harden, making them keep better
in storage.

AIUI it's done when the farmer isn't ready to lift the crop. So he
destroys the haulms to prevent blight spreading down to the tubers.
I've seen diquat and dinoseb also recommended as defoliants. Wouldn't
fancy handling strong sulphuric acid by the tanker-load though, let
alone spraying it all over the place. Must be hellish corrosive on the
farm machinery, let alone the farmer, especially if he gets a gust of
wind from the wrong direction!


--
Chris

E-mail: christopher[dot]hogg[at]virgin[dot]net