On Wed, 4 Feb 2004 18:16:50 -0000, "Bob Hobden"
wrote:

~
~"jane" wrote in message : (snip))
~
~ ~Our problem here is not Blight but slugs, they really are dreadful on our
~ ~site. Tried Nemaslug last year but decided it was not effective enough to
~ ~warrant the heavy cost, we could buy bags of commercially grown Organic
~ ~spuds for the year and save on money and effort.
~ ~So we are always on the lookout for slug resistant varieties.
~
~ The HDRA poster of recommended varieties had listed as slug resistant
~ King Edward, Pentland Dell, Red King Edward, Romano.
~
~Unfortunately King Edward does not like our soil type and grows only small
~tubers and lots of top. Stemster grows beautifully here but is a slug dinner
~treat so that's no good. :-(

Yes, Alan Romans has Stemster at slug resistance 2, which is one off
the worst.

The main problem here is scab - growing in heavily alkaline soil over
chalk doesn't give us an option but to lump it. The HDRA gave a whole
load of things to do to avoid it, but Chris and I reckoned we might as
well forget the lot as no way can we prevent it short of growing them
in growbags!

~ ~This year we have bought...FE:- Concorde: SE:- Kestral: EMc:- Romano:
~ ~Mc:- Golden Wonder. The first two have proved themselves to be good doers
~ ~here on our Thames silt/clay. Not grown the last two before but Romano is
~ ~supposed to be even better at slug avoidance than Kestral, not sure about
~ ~that or their keeping/eating qualities but we will see.
~
~ Kestrel is down as having reasonable blackleg resistance and good
~ eelworm resistance. Golden Wonder is down as scab resistant (which I
~ could use!). I can email you the full listing if you're interested - I
~ took a couple of digipics and transcribed the text when I got home...

Looking into it a bit more, Kestrel really is a good bet. Perhaps I
should have tried it!

~Thank's for the offer but I have a book from that GC I mentioned, details
~from which are also on their site, so no need, thanks. Mind you, isn't it
~strange the way different people say different things about the same
~variety, one reference said Golden Wonder was good for slug resistance and
~another says it's a slug attractant. I do hope not.

The one I've got says GW has slug resistance 5 (out of 6) and best
saved till after New Year for best flavour. Silly amount of dry matter
and so very floury. Not my preferred spud!

~ ~Use a useful Screen Saver...
~ ~http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/
~ ~and find intelligent life amongst the stars
~ ~371 data units completed.
~ ~
~ I had 7762 last time I looked. Oops!
~
~You running a Cray computer there Jane? :-)
Um... no, just in a very competitive group so have it running all over
the place. The top scorer has done nearly 88000. (Second place has a
mere 21000.) Though it helps to have a PC that can do a unit in an
average 2h 50min, and another that takes just over 4h. And to have
been going for years.

I also run them in text mode only - takes about 2/3 of the time of the
screensaver version.


--
jane

Don't part with your illusions. When they are gone,
you may still exist but you have ceased to live.
Mark Twain

Please remove onmaps from replies, thanks!