Potato Problems

For the first year ever, we planted potatoes in our vegetable plot. The variety that we put in is called 'Anya', and it came up a treat. We dutifully piled earth around the stem as each plant grew and added appropriate amounts of fertilizer. Everything looked great until about ten days ago, when some of the leaves came out in nasty, brown-black spots. The number of spots grew, with some of the plants badly affected and some not at all. Then the leaves started to turn yellow and, very quickly, began to fall off.

Potatoes have been a staple of the Highland diet for generations, and the failure of the potato crop, particularly in 1846, and the resulting famine was one of the causes of the great Scottish migrations out of the country to places like Canada, New Zealand and Australia. At that time, the scourge of the potato was 'blight', a fungus which thrives in warm, wet conditions. Its spores, bourn by the wind, can travel miles, and, once the plant is infected, there is no cure, the resulting tubers being either rotten or so damaged that they will rot if stored.

We consulted the top experts in the village, hoping against hope that what our precious spuds had was some mild, easily cured ailment - but no such luck: we have blight. We have been advised to strip away all the infected foliage and burn it. As a result, we won't be harvesting much of a crop. And, to make matters worse, our tomatoes, a plant which is related to the potato, are also looking sick.

Little wonder, then, that our local crofters have almost given up growing potatoes. The last field in Ormsaigbeg to be put down to the crop was afflicted by blight, the 'golden wonder' variety suffering the worst. There are varieties which are disease-resistant: if we try again next year, we'll have to be sure we buy the right seed potatoes.