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Hi All,

Disaster, my potato crop as succumbed to the dreaded Blight. It has been going round the allotments for weeks now. I had been spraying the foliage with neat EM's once a fortnight and had thought that the EM's were working for me. However when the plots on either side of me became infected during the long rainy spell I must have forgotten to spray my crop. On checking how much liquid EM was left this proved to be the case!!!

I appear to be the last plot infected and put this down to error on my part in not spraying with EM's when I should have!!

It is my organic Cara potatoes which are the worst affected, they are supposedly more resistant to blight!!! This is my first ever infection of blight, I have therefore cut down the haulms to 3 inches above the ground with no attached leaves. I will also water the soil with neat EM's, hopefully the crop should continue to grow for a further fortnight and then be lifted.

Obviously the prevailing weather conditions had a lot to do with this, but I still believe that it was my failure to spray which allowed the airborne fungal spores to infect my crop!!!!

This is my first real setback, and most likely, not my last, I will now be gathering and drying Horsetail fronds for use as a possible remedy to the onset of this disease. The herb Equistum arvense( Horsetail) has a long history in the treatment of fungal diseases especially in humans. I will now set my mind, to as. and how best, to employ the herb for the purpose of protecting my potatoes in future.

My thinking is to possibly subject the fronds to an EM liquid culture whereby the fronds will have their medicinal value broken down. This may I think make the spray more effective as a deterrent, but this will obviously be for next season.

This has negated any seed saving from this years potato crop as late blight is known to be carried by tubers of infected plants.

It is late blight that my crop has been infected with, and as I understand it there is no effective organic cure for this once a plant is infected. I will lift whatever there is to harvest and hope that the blight has not got down to the tubers. However, again as I understand it, late blight can only survive on living tissue.

This would mean that it is imperative that I remove every last little marble sized tuber from the soil to ensure no reoccurrence of this disaster!!!

I feel that the changes now taking place in the gulf stream air system will become more of a problem in the coming years. I don't for a minute think that this is a one off situation, I believe that this may become a regular occurrence within our weather system.

We are living in interesting times!!!