My garden is riddled with spraing, and always has been. It was very
bad last year, and has particularly affected my Champions - which I
cannot simply get new seed of, as they are not available.

Is there anything practical I can do, short of not growing potatoes
for some years and starting again with clean stock?


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

"Nick Maclaren" wrote in message
...

My garden is riddled with spraing, and always has been. It was very
bad last year, and has particularly affected my Champions - which I
cannot simply get new seed of, as they are not available.

Is there anything practical I can do, short of not growing potatoes
for some years and starting again with clean stock?


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

I'd not heard of Spraing before and thought you might be taking the mickey
(Spring/Spraing/Champions etc.) although I thought this unlikely.
You may have seen this before, otherwise I hope it will be of some
assistance
'Use integrated control strategies to minimise spraing on infected soils.
For reduction of spraing, Temik 10G may be applied in furrow dose rate of
128 g /100 m row, or in PCN situations as an overall treatment at 33.6
kg/ha (maincrop) or 22.4 kg/ha (first earlies, harvested within 8 weeks of
planting) immediately before planting.'

I hope this may be of some assistance, otherwise my apologies for wasting
your time.

Regards
another
Nick.

"Nick Maclaren"wrote ...

My garden is riddled with spraing, and always has been. It was very
bad last year, and has particularly affected my Champions - which I
cannot simply get new seed of, as they are not available.

Is there anything practical I can do, short of not growing potatoes
for some years and starting again with clean stock?

We have it on the allotments a bit, but the severity of the problem does
depend on variety. Horrid problem, don't know you have it until you cut the
spud open, makes it impossible to use them as baked spuds.

Those with good resistance to Spraing are...

First Early..
Arran Pilot
Lady Christl
Premier
Swift

SE and Main Crop...
Charlotte
Fianna
Hermes
Record
Romano
Slaney

Hope this helps.

--
Regards
Bob
In Runnymede, 17 miles West of London

In article , Nick Maclaren
writes

My garden is riddled with spraing, and always has been. It was very
bad last year, and has particularly affected my Champions - which I
cannot simply get new seed of, as they are not available.

Is there anything practical I can do, short of not growing potatoes
for some years and starting again with clean stock?

Champion potato micro-plants were available from the Organic Gardening
Catalogue [www.OrganicCatalogue.com] until 2004, but they don't appear
in it this year. They are a very old and popular maincrop variety, but
vulnerable to diseases such as spraing. Maybe a more resistant strain
will be developed under another name?
--
Alan & Joan Gould - North Lincs.

On Fri, 4 Feb 2005, Nick Maclaren wrote:

My garden is riddled with spraing, and always has been. It was very
bad last year, and has particularly affected my Champions - which I
cannot simply get new seed of, as they are not available.

Pardon my ignorance, but - what is Spraing and what does it do to
potatoes?

I'd like to know if my allotment suffers from it.

David

--
David Rance http://www.mesnil.demon.co.uk
Fido Address: 2:252/110 writing from Caversham, Reading, UK

Thanks for all the replies and advice. Here is some more information
for the people who asked:

Spraing is a virus disease that is carried by nematodes, and infected
parent plants produce infected tubers. The symptoms are arc-like
brownish lesions in the flesh, in extreme cases almost like embedded
skin, which makes the potatoes unsightly. As far as I know, they are
perfectly good to eat (they taste fine), but not attractive. And, of
course, it reduces the crop. The leaf symptoms are yellowish mottling,
distinguishable from blight etc. by NOT becoming any worse.

I got some Champion microplants and have built up from there; the
trouble with growing resistant varieties is that the potatoes that I
want to grow are some of the older, better flavoured varieties - such
as Champion, Orion and so on. I can't see much point in growing things
that I can buy, when I have a very small area.

Temik 10G is a nematode pesticide, which would help to stop potatoes
getting infected, but will do nothing for infected seed. I am not
sure how easy it is to get, how toxic, persistent and ecologically
undesirable. Anyway, there is no point in me using it unless I scrap
all infected seed and start again. I am not convinced that it will
work well enough for me to keep seed potatoes spraing-free.

Now, because it was very bad last year, but not as bad in previous
ones even on infected plants, I suspect that it is one of the diseases
that varies in severity with conditions. Hence the interest in knowing
if anyone knows more.

Incidentally, Bute Blues seem fairly resistant to spraing, too. King
Edwards are susceptible, but not as much as Champion, and the first
earlies seem to escape it (rather like late blight).


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

Sorry about the followup. The actual virus is, according to my books,
the tobacco rattle virus. There is another variety of spraing, caused
by another virus and with another vector, but I was describing the
one that I have. It is very widespread.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

"Nick Maclaren" wrote

My garden is riddled with spraing, and always has been. It was very
bad last year, and has particularly affected my Champions - which I
cannot simply get new seed of, as they are not available.

Is there anything practical I can do, short of not growing potatoes
for some years and starting again with clean stock?


BTW everything you ever wanted to know about spuds is at
http://www.europotato.org/
Click on Cultivated Varieties (top left) and there is data on 4,000
varieties.

--
Regards
Bob
In Runnymede, 17 miles West of London

On 4 Feb 2005 21:28:24 GMT, (Nick Maclaren) wrote:


My garden is riddled with spraing, and always has been. It was very
bad last year, and has particularly affected my Champions - which I
cannot simply get new seed of, as they are not available.

Is there anything practical I can do, short of not growing potatoes
for some years and starting again with clean stock?


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

My agricultural almanack (McConnell) says:

"Spraing can be caused by two different soil-borne viruses; potato
mop-top virus carried by the motile stage of the fungus causing
powdery scab, and tobacco rattle virus carried by a free-living
nematode 'Trichinoses'. Both favoured by damp conditions; rotation is
the main control."

Not much help, and you probably knew it anyway!


--
Chris

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