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Old 07-03-2009, 10:06 AM posted to uk.rec.gardening
Stephen[_6_] Stephen[_6_] is offline
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First recorded activity by GardenBanter: Dec 2008
Posts: 10
Default Potatoes: Golden Wonder, Cara, and others

Hello,

I'm a bit puzzled about Golden Wonder potatoes. I was reading the
packs at the garden centre, last year I had problems with slugs, so I
was looking for a slug-resistant variety. I read that Golden Wonder
had good slug resistance. I've just looked up GW in the "Veg Expert"
book and it says it is rarely a good choice and then lists a number of
faults including susceptibility to slugs! What is going on? Why is
there such a drastic difference of opinion? Surely GW can't be that
bad otherwise they wouldn't use it for crisps? Why would the garden
centre say it was slug resistant if it isn't (they did not put this
claim on any other potato variety).

I'm also confused about Cara. The adverts say it is the allotment
favourite but then list problems such as slugs; how can it be so
popular and bad all at the same time?

Is there such a thing as a perfect potato? It seems to me that the
ones that are resistant to slugs are susceptible to drought and the
ones resistant to drought are susceptible to blight and so on. In
other words they all have different strengths that are offset by
different weaknesses. Is it just the case of finding the one that
ticks the most boxes?

Thanks,
Stephen.