Getting a good potato harvest depends on the condition of the soil, planting material, and weather conditions. Sometimes all this is there, but the harvest is bad or quickly deteriorates.
Healthy, green and juicy tops are an indicator of the health of the tubers and the key to the safety of the harvest.
Potato tops dry out at the end of the growing season, but sometimes long before this period they begin to wither, turn black, and the leaves dry out. This picture can be observed during the flowering period, before the flowers appear, and during the period of active potato growth.
The cause may be disease or pests.
The following factors can cause the disease::
Advice! Planting material must be adapted to the local climate and soil!
Potato diseases are different pathogens, causing the disease:
Let's look at the most common potato diseases, which are characterized by blackening of the tops.
Late blight, late blight, brown rot– the name of a disease of potatoes and nightshades, caused by the fungus Phitophtora infestans.
Most often, the disease appears after mid-July, when temperature fluctuations occur and excess moisture is noticed. 
Features of the mushroom:
Signs of the disease:
Subsequently, if no measures are taken, signs appear on all leaves, all stems are affected, and tubers begin to rot.
Preventive actions:
Treatment with chemicals scares many people because of the ability of chemicals to accumulate in the soil and tubers, so home treatment methods are popular. They should be used at the first sign of disease. 
Recipes for late blight:
Sometimes home remedies do not help, then you have to use chemicals to save the plantings.
Chemical treatment steps:
Reference! Processing is carried out in dry weather!
Pre-sowing tillage and selection of seed to prevent the occurrence of disease are more preferable measures than treating a diseased plant.
Alternaria blight is a disease of potato and nightshade crops caused by imperfect fungi. 
Features of Alternaria:
Alternaria develops under the following conditions:
Signs of Alternaria:
Fighting Alternaria:
Origin and distribution Alternaria depends on preventive measures:
Fusarium(dry rot, fusarium wilt) is a plant disease caused by fungi of the genus Fusarium.
Most often, potato infection occurs during the formation and development of tubers. It takes about a month from infection to the appearance of symptoms of the disease. 
Signs of fusarium:
Information! The inside of the cut of the infected stem is brown.
Features of fusarium:
Prevention of fusarium:
Information! Potatoes can be planted in a Fusarium-infected area after 5 years!
Rhizoctoniosis– a fungal disease of plants, caused by the fungus Rhizoctonia solani Kuehn. 
Signs of rhizoctoniasis:
1. The disease can be detected by tubercles (sclerotia), similar to dried mud, on tubers. Their merging forms a larger “dirty” spot. Sclerotia is a form of fungal existence in the sleep phase.
2. At temperatures above 5° and high humidity, sclerotia grow into mycelium, which spreads throughout the tuber, shoots during germination, and roots. An infected tuber may rot without sprouting.
3. If an infected plant sprouts, it will differ from a healthy one: low growth, dark brown spots (black rot) are visible on the tuberous shoots and the neck of the root, the stem is thickened in the lower part, the leaves at the top change color to purple and curl. A diseased bush droops when it is dry and warm, recovering at night. In drought, infected bushes are the first to die.
4. The mycelium on the tuber grows, this leads to the formation of ulcers filled with rot, and later the tuber turns into dust.
5. The stem below becomes covered with a white film in damp weather with average temperatures - this is evidence of infection of the tubers. The place where the film appears contains fungal spores. This period is called the breeding phase. 
Prevention of rhizoctoniasis:
Preventive measures will significantly reduce the possibility of fungus infecting vegetation in the garden and crops and ensure its safety.
Blackleg– a disease caused by the bacteria Erwinia carotovora (its three varieties). 
Features of the bacterium:
Signs of blackleg:
Prevention of blackleg:
Preventive measures are available and possible for use on any farm.
Keeping the tops healthy and fresh green in color requires following some rules:
Compliance with these rules will allow you to see the area with potato crops green, with healthy plants. 
Prevention of blackening of potato tops, carried out in a timely manner, gives good results: the plant does not suffer more or is mildly ill, and produces a decent harvest.
Prevention of blackening and wilting of tops
If the plant is still infected, you must first determine the type of infection in order to correctly prescribe the “treatment” and hold events:
Important! Sick plants and tubers should not be left on the site - the fungus is transmitted by contact, with water, through the soil
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When harvesting potatoes, about 10% of the tubers are not suitable for winter storage: they are affected by the so-called dry rot.
How to deal with dry rot on potatoes?
What measures can be taken to prevent it when planting potatoes?
It develops during its storage. The tuber shows depressed brown spots with wrinkled skin, and then the potato turns into a hard, dry lump.
It is believed that to a large extent it damaged the tubers, which were damaged by bruises during harvesting and transportation to the storage site. Nowadays they even sell special shovels, which are preferable for digging potatoes so as not to injure them. In the center, like in the pitchforks, they have membranes that are bordered by a solid fabric. You can make such a shovel yourself from a standard one.
However, it happens that bruises have nothing to do with it, and even when harvesting, the gardener bitterly selects tubers with hard, depressed brown or brown spots. They spread inward, as evidenced by the rusty areas of the pulp going towards the center when cutting the potato.
We can certainly say that late blight is rampant on the plantation, from which not only the potato tops but also the vegetable itself have suffered. Having destroyed the above-ground part of the plant, late blight disease, firstly, reduced the yield, and secondly, penetrated into the tubers during rains and watering.
For early warning and detection late blight diseases, It is recommended to select healthy potato tubers for planting, their light germination before planting in the soil, early hilling of potato bushes, and spraying the tops with Bordeaux mixture in the budding phase.
There are other diseases that harm potatoes, for example a description with a photo: dry Phoma rot. Initially, dark depressed spots with a distinct border are visible on the surface. Subsequently, the potato tubers wrinkle, dry out, and become light and hard.
All this infectious diseases affecting the biological structure of potatoes. And it is no coincidence that we have to follow the recommendations when planting potatoes: crop rotation. Unfortunately, in a small summer cottage where potatoes are the main crop, this is not always possible. But sowing rye, after harvesting potatoes, improves the soil as green manure, is quite possible.
Now it would be nice to treat (do preventive treatment) the potato planting material with a 0.01-0.05% solution of microelements: copper sulfate, boric acid and manganese. Copper not only accelerates potato tuberization, but also increases disease resistance; boron helps improve the taste and quality of potatoes, and manganese helps increase the accumulation of starch and vitamins C.
What to do, what measures to take?
Dry rot affects potatoes that previously could not be protected from late blight and other diseases. This means that it is best to take care of preventing dry rot now, by doing everything to ensure that late blight bypasses your plantings. If, for some reason, it is not possible to protect the potatoes from late blight, then three weeks after harvesting, carefully sort them out and remove all diseased tubers. You can recognize them by their bluish-gray and then brown spots.
Dry rot on potatoes also occurs in places where tubers are mechanically damaged. Therefore, when cleaning, do not throw them away, but carefully place them in a bucket or bag. Probably, your potatoes suffer the most when transported from the garden, which, as you write, is 25 kilometers away. Try as much as possible to ensure that he gets as few bruises as possible on the road. This is all the more important because dry rot develops when tubers are stored at high temperatures. And in the cold it is in your room. And further. I think you know that when harvesting, tubers damaged by the disease should be placed in a separate container to prevent its spread. You should do the same with chopped potatoes.
In the basement, among the potatoes, there are rotten ones with an unpleasant odor. Isn't this dangerous for the rest of the potato tubers?
It seems that these tubers are affected by one of the diseases that plague potatoes during storage - wet rot on potatoes. Its causative agents are several types of bacteria that develop together. It is difficult to resist such an onslaught for tubers that have lost their protective properties: damaged mechanically or by frost, heat, as well as those already affected by late blight, ring rot, and other diseases and pests.
The development of wet rot on potatoes is facilitated by improper storage conditions, including elevated temperatures, self-heating, and sweating of tubers. To combat rot, you must first take care of the temperature in the basement, reducing the temperature to one to three degrees Celsius. And, of course, the potatoes should be sorted out, removing all the diseased potatoes and their neighbors, especially from the top foggy layer.
Last year I bought a bucket of potatoes - the tubers were heavy and large. Before planting, I cut them into two halves and immediately dipped them in ash. And when I dug it up, there were a lot of limp tubers, but there were also some that couldn’t be cut with a knife: very hard and black in the middle. Maybe I shouldn't have cut the potatoes?
Experts believe that cutting large tubers is possible. It is better to do this a few days before planting so that the cut becomes corked. This to a certain extent protects the potatoes from rotting, and in the soil from infection with various diseases.
In addition, when cutting, you can detect and reject tubers with the slightest signs of disease: internal spots, rot. Dipping the sections in ash prevents infection. I think it’s appropriate to say here: don’t blame the horse, blame the road. Remember last summer: heat, heat. It doesn’t take long for ripened tubers to become soft and lethargic in hot soil. And some of them responded to prolonged drought and high temperatures by darkening the flesh.
An imbalance of nutrients in the soil could also affect the darkening of the inside of the potato. This usually happens when there is an excess of nitrogen or a deficiency of potassium. With a sufficient amount of potassium, potatoes become more resistant to darkening of the tuber pulp, as well as to fungal and bacterial diseases.
Why do potatoes grow with deep cracks that seem to divide them into slices?
Cracking of potato tubers, as a rule, occurs on dry days if they are not watered abundantly. The tubers become covered with deep cracks, making the potatoes difficult to peel. Affected tubers are poorly stored; they must be used for food as soon as possible.
Faced with such a disaster, some gardeners object: we water potatoes during a drought. But watering and watering are different. It’s no secret that some people splash earth on top and are happy that they got the job done. And inside there is dryness, which can cause enormous harm to potatoes. Experienced gardeners usually flood the rows with I so that the moisture gets directly to the roots of the plants. Water in this way not often, but abundantly.
Nematode tormented potatoes. Tell me what to do?
The potato nematode is a quarantine pest and, when it appears in the garden, it damages from 20 to 90 percent of the plants, which sharply reduces the yield. Products affected by this disease cannot be sold or exported to other areas.
Stem nematode on potatoes persists for a long time in planting material, soil, and plant debris. It's not easy to fight her. Having dug up the potatoes, it was necessary first of all to dry the tubers well - under a canopy for two to three weeks (the so-called curative period). Then carefully sort them, removing the affected ones. Only healthy tubers should be stored in bins for winter storage. If you haven't done this, it's not too late to improve the situation.
From the area where potatoes were grown, all tops must now be carefully removed and burned (they are infected with nematodes), and the equipment used (baskets, shovels, boxes) must be cleaned and disinfected. If the soil is heavily contaminated, experts advise adding the preparations thiazone and thiourea or the microbiological preparation nematophagin BL when digging.
An effective, harmless way to disinfect the soil is to sow winter rye after harvesting potatoes. Another radical means of getting rid of this malicious pest is the cultivation of nematode-resistant varieties, since there are many of them.
Description of the problem.
I don't have many potatoes sprouting. I keep it on the balcony, and when frost hits, I bring it into the room. When planting, I put humus in the holes and throw mineral fertilizers on top.
The energy of germination and yield of potatoes that sprout several times during storage, like yours, are no longer the same. It is even more important to help him in the pre-planting period. You can keep it in the light for about a month or a little more, for example, in small ventilated boxes, but so that direct sunlight does not fall on it. It will lose a lot of moisture over the winter, so it would be a good idea to keep it in water at room temperature for several hours.
Some gardeners, in order to protect against late blight, practice weekly spraying of tubers with a solution of potassium permanganate (10 grams per 10 liters of water) or boric acid (five grams per the same amount of water) during germination. Every week, the tubers will need to be inspected and those with weak, thread-like sprouts removed.
Reject those with spots on the skin or other slightest signs of disease. Apparently, you have these, since potatoes are affected by dry rot. Tubers with short, thick, dark green sprouts are suitable for planting.
If you have to remove sprouts several times during the winter, and they appear again at the beginning of spring, then you should no longer cut them off and make the germination period so long. But it will be necessary to select tubers with the strongest shoots for planting.
Perhaps the reason for non-germination is a large dose of mineral fertilizers. When dry, they are very concentrated and can easily burn the sprouts, especially if sprinkled on top of tubers or protected by a thin layer of soil.
There may be other reasons for your failure. For example, experts have found that some potato varieties significantly reduce germination if they are not stored at the optimal temperature. Thus, the Nevskaya variety at a storage temperature of six to nine degrees Celsius loses its germination capacity by more than 1 to 40 percent.
Last year, some potato tubers did not sprout, although the care was normal. I had to dig them up. What a surprise it was when I saw that the babies were formed directly on the potatoes. We don't understand what's going on?
Unfortunately, this sometimes happens. In particular, new tubers are formed from planting material without the appearance of roots and on above-ground organs, if this same material has been in cold soil for a long time. And it seems that this happened to you, because there was a desire to get marketable potatoes as early as possible.
Particularly affected were varieties with large tubers, which could reproduce offspring bypassing the phase of formation of green shoots. Sometimes this happens for another reason - when tubers are planted in too dry soil at air temperatures above 30 degrees. Therefore, when preparing to plant potatoes this year, it will be necessary to take the choice of timing very seriously, taking into account weather conditions.
Pests have appeared in the garden; they crawl into potato tubers and destroy them. These are dark gray worms 4-5 cm long. We don’t know how to get rid of them.
It looks like your potatoes are being damaged by the nodule. There is a simple and effective way to combat it. In several places in the potato field, dig holes 40 cm deep and 30x30 cm in size. Place straw manure in them and sprinkle a layer of 8-10 cm of soil on top. Be sure to mark the holes with poles so that they can be quickly found. When real frost hits, throw the contents of the holes up. The pests gathered there for the winter will die.
Part of the garden is infected with a fungus (I don’t know what kind), the potatoes planted here turn out to be completely infected with the fungus and are not suitable for consumption. Is it possible to remove the fungus?
About the nature of potato damage, therefore, it is not possible to determine the “diagnosis”, and therefore, to give any specific recommendations. The main garden crop can be affected by various diseases, including fungal ones. This is, for example, potato cancer, which greatly affects tubers and stolons. Large growths of different sizes appear on them, first white, and then they turn brown and decompose. When affected by this disease, part of the crop dies while still in the ground, the rest during storage.
Common scab appears on tubers in the form of ulcers of various sizes and shapes. With severe damage, almost the entire surface of the tubers becomes covered with a continuous crust, and wet and dry rot quickly develops on them in storage. Most often, scab manifests itself on alkaline soil, with heavy liming, application of fresh manure and continuous cultivation of potatoes in the same place. In this case, the soil can be treated by sowing perennial (alkaloid) lupine on green fertilizer and incorporating it into the soil in the blue bean phase.
Tubers can also be affected by glandular spotting, in which brown areas form inside. They are clearly visible when cutting tubers. This disease is caused by elevated soil temperatures and improper plant nutrition, when they lack nitrogen, calcium, magnesium, but have an excess of iron. The application of organic fertilizer with the addition of nitrophoska will help here. If you are convinced that everything is in order with the diet and the fungus is to blame, then you can resort to the help of rye, sowing it as a green fertilizer. It is a recognized phytosanitary, heals the soil, and inhibits pathogens of fungal diseases. If you treat its seeds before sowing, it will not only disinfect the soil, but also destroy a number of pests, including mole crickets and wireworms.
Even if you sprinkled it with dry chalk, you will have to constantly check how it is doing in the basement. And respond immediately to worsening conditions.
One of the most common diseases that makes itself felt during this period is fusarium dry rot. Round spots appear on the fruits, as if pressed in at the edges. And inside - dark brown with voids and mold. If the cellar is dry, then the rotten areas are dry. If it is wet, softness is noticeable.
The spots begin in places of bruises and cover the entire tuber. It dries out and becomes completely unfit for food. If you lower the temperature to 2-4 degrees, the spread of rot will slow down. You should only sort through the top layer of potatoes, the whole one if the disease outbreak is severe, and ventilate the room. Experts also advise covering the top layer with straw: it absorbs excess moisture.
It is necessary to take plants whose phytoncides can protect him from various troubles. Most often, dry rowan leaves, wormwood branches, wormwood or garlic cloves are used for this purpose. And to prevent potatoes from germinating prematurely, experienced gardeners sprinkle them with dry mint leaves. The aromatic compounds it releases have a depressing effect on the seedlings.
There are many factors causing yellowing, drying of the plant and its wilting. In order to provide timely assistance to potatoes and save their harvest, it is worth knowing about all the possible causes of the phenomenon.
From the video you will learn about potato diseases and their treatment.
Yellowed potatoes in your garden may appear as a result of the vegetable being damaged by fungal diseases. Experienced summer residents know that such diseases are very dangerous for the crop and they are, to put it mildly, not easy to treat. Therefore, it is worth fighting fungal diseases immediately after their first signs appear. Most often, potatoes are affected by:
Phytosporosis. In this case, fungal spores live on the inside of the foliage. Over time, brown stripes appear on the green part of the plant. Such an individual withers and dries very quickly. Potato tubers become covered with dark spots and begin to rot. At the same time, harvest volumes are sharply reduced.
To defeat the disease, you can treat the plants with chemicals during their flowering, deep-hill the plants, and destroy the infected organs a week before harvesting. Sorting the collected fruits will help. To avoid late blight, as a preventive measure, summer residents often plant varieties of vegetables that are weakly susceptible to the disease. 
Fusarium. In the first stages, the lower leaves of the plant wither, and then gradually the upper ones. After which the organs turn yellow and dry out. Detecting the presence of fusarium is not easy, especially in hot and dry climates. Verticillium wilt is often observed, which is accompanied by yellowing of the lower part of the bush, followed by wilting and curling. Sometimes signs of the disease appear immediately after germination, which is a sign of contamination of the seed.
You can defeat the disease by first treating the seeds of the plant. Eliminating and burning crop stems before harvesting vegetables and mechanically treating the soil after harvesting fruits will help.
Dry spotting (Macrosporiosis). Symptoms of the disease are elongated spots on the leaves and stems of the crop, which gradually and constantly increase in size. In this case, the bush usually dries out and dies. The tubers become smaller, and their number decreases significantly. Methods of combating the disease are similar to methods of combating late blight.
Ring rot. The development of the disease is promoted by excessively humidified air and elevated ambient temperatures. Symptoms of the disease are yellowing of individual stems. In this case, the tops of the bushes curl, and the individual itself dries and disintegrates. In a section of the stem, it is easy to detect rot, which is shaped like a ring. Most of the crop affected by the disease rots in the ground.
Planting healthy seeds, eliminating infected individuals, and treating the area with copper sulfate will help prevent the appearance of the disease.
Blackleg. This disease of a bacterial nature will make itself felt immediately after the appearance of young individuals on the surface. Such a crop curls and turns yellow. At the base the stems are affected by rot. 
To defeat the disease, pre-sorting and treatment of tubers for planting with fungicides is carried out. In addition, before storing, the harvested crop should be dried, and all diseased individuals must also be eliminated. Sprinkling the area with copper sulfate along with ash will also help.
Vegetable leaves may also change color due to a lack of potassium and phosphorus in depleted soil. The main danger of late blight is shortening the growing season by 2 times. As a result, harvest volumes are significantly reduced. Tubers become smaller because nutrients mainly accumulate in the stems of the plant, which cannot gain the required weight. Usually 1 stem corresponds to 1 tuber. By the number of stems you can determine the number of main tubers. Accordingly, the mass of the stem will help determine the weight of the tuber. However, all this is true for elite potatoes, because degenerate varieties have more tubers, the quality of which leaves much to be desired. 
The first sign of nitrogen deficiency for potatoes is a thin stem of the bush, even under proper watering conditions.
Viral diseases are the most dangerous for potatoes, as they are practically incurable. The variety of such diseases is quite wide: top curl virus, mosaic alfalfa, gothic, mottling and curl. Symptoms of viral diseases are yellow leaves, irregularly shaped tubers, stunted growth, early death of stems, and a sharp decrease in the amount of yield. Infection occurs as a result of contact between healthy and sick individuals. It can be transmitted through gardening tools and carried by certain insects. The affected green mass is destroyed along with the tubers.
There are no chemical methods of protection against viral epidemics. The only option is to plant healthy seeds.
So, yellowing of potato tops is a serious problem that arises for a number of reasons. It can be overcome only by clearly determining what exactly caused the change in color of the tops.
From the video you will learn about potato pests and insects.
For what reasons do potato leaves turn yellow and why is it important to start “treating” them on time? By ignoring the change in leaf color, you may lose your tuber harvest. Therefore, find out right now which methods of combating yellowness are the most effective.
Based on potato tops, we can draw conclusions about the future harvest. If it begins to turn yellow, there is a high chance that you could lose more than half of your potato harvest. Most often, plants change color due to viral and fungal diseases or unfavorable weather conditions. Let's look at the most popular reasons for yellowing potato leaves.
First of all, the plant suffers from heat and excess moisture.
Most often in June, potato leaves turn yellow from below, but gradually the unhealthy autumn color covers the entire plant. This is primarily due to lack of moisture And air in the surface layer of soil. Drought and a sharp increase in temperature in June leads to the fact that young foliage literally “burns out.” However, abundant watering And frequent rains also do not always have a beneficial effect on the condition of the plantings - due to excess liquid, a crust forms on the soil, preventing air from penetrating to the roots.
In moderately humid and warm weather, young foliage turns yellow in early June
Against the background of unfavorable weather conditions, the plant develops verticillium wilt. Affected leaves turn yellow, dry out, curl and die. Even young seedlings can become infected with verticillium. This means that the tuber sprouts have been infected, and such a bush will not grow to normal height. The disease develops especially actively at a temperature of 17-22°C. If you cut the stem diagonally close to the ground, you can see small brown spots on the cut - this is the soil fungus - the causative agent of the disease.
Measures for the prevention and control of potato verticillium:
The next common cause of June leaf wilting is fusarium wilt. It starts from the top of the potato bush, gradually affecting the entire plant. Fusarium actively develops during periods of high humidity and cool weather. At the same time, interestingly, the stem is restored overnight and looks healthy outwardly. But with a strong development of the disease, both the stem itself and the leaves turn brown (later they curl and die).
Measures for the prevention and control of potato fusarium:
At the beginning of July, do the potato leaves also turn yellow and black spots appear on them? Perhaps she liked the plantings potato nematode. This microscopic pest feeds on the sap of the roots, as a result of which the stem and leaves weaken, turn yellow and die. If affected by a nematode, 60-80% of the harvest may be missing.
Remember that the effectiveness of fungicides reaches its maximum only in sunny weather
Measures for the prevention and control of potato nematode:
Towards mid-summer, potatoes begin to experience iron deficiency And manganese. It leads to chlorosis and the withering of the “green robe” of the bushes. How to avoid it?
Measures to prevent and combat potato chlorosis:
The most important misfortune of a potato grower is the yellowing of the lower leaves of young tops. Most often this is a sign late blight- a dangerous disease that affects potatoes no matter where they grow. Dark spots form along the edges of the leaves, which gradually spread to the entire plant. On the inside, the spots become discolored, which is sometimes accompanied by yellowing of the leaves.
It is very difficult to save bushes from late blight; as a rule, they are uprooted and burned
Measures for the prevention and control of late blight:
And finally, the most important thing - sometimes the leaves turn yellow due to what you planted early potato variety or the old leaves simply fall off. This is a natural process and there is no need to worry about it. For all other cases, use our recommendations.
Potato diseases bring a lot of trouble to gardeners. Photos, descriptions and treatment of scab (rhizoctoniosis), dry rot are the subject of our conversation. After all, potatoes are a staple food in many countries. It is easy to grow in the garden, which makes it popular among gardeners. But potatoes are susceptible to many diseases. The main pathogens are various fungi, bacteria, viruses. Prevention is almost the only means of protection. Many diseases can be prevented if preventive measures are taken in time or treatment is started at the initial stage.
Rhizoctoniosis is one of the common fungal diseases of potatoes in household plots, called black leg or black scab. It causes especially great damage under conditions favorable for the development of pathogens.
Photo of a stem infected with blackleg Rhizoctoniosis - manifests itself in the form of black scab, rotting of eyes, sprouts, death of roots, as well as “black leg” of stems in wet weather. At the beginning of the development of the disease, lesions on stolons, roots, and stems are reddish-brown. When they mature, they turn into rough, cracked sores. If the cankers are significant, they can encircle the stem, interfering with the normal movement of juices and carbohydrates throughout the plant. Thus, symptoms of the disease can be seen on the above-ground part and on the tuber.
Sunken brown cankers of varying sizes and shapes can be seen on infected stolons or stems above or below the soil surface. These ulcers can be girdling in nature - in this case the plant dies sooner or later. Young nodules cannot arise or develop on such stolons.
Black plaque is the most noticeable sign of the disease. During this phase of the disease, the fungus Rhizoctonia Solani produces dark brown to black growths, as if potatoes were stained in the soil. But this is not the earth, these are the so-called sclerotia located on the surface. They are irregular in shape, ranging from small flat spots to large raised spots. Although these structures fit tightly to the surface of the tuber, they do not penetrate inside and do not spoil the taste of the potato.
However, if such potatoes are used as seed material, then the sclerotia will inhibit the development of the planted potatoes and may even destroy them. This happens because during the growing season the fungus Rhizoctonia Solani attacks the root system and the base of the plant stems. The movement of nutrients from the leaves to the young tubers is disrupted. The upper leaves curl along the main vein. It appears that they are infested with aphids.
The main source of infection is seed material. Sometimes heavily infected potatoes are unable to even form stems. This symptom is called "no top" and can be confused with the same symptoms as growing from physiologically old seeds.
Treatment of rhizoctoniosis and black scab requires an integrated approach, knowledge of each stage of the disease. One of the most important means of combating the disease is to purchase and plant only high quality seed material that is not contaminated with pathogenic fungi.
An effective way to combat diseases is prevention - pre-sowing light germination of tubers. The application of rotted manure, superphosphate, and potassium fertilizers reduces the negative effect of the pathogen.
Potatoes are best planted after corn, beets, beans, and peas. Weak plants are most susceptible to the disease, but it practically does not affect the sprouts of sprouted tubers. Therefore, it is very important to germinate potatoes before planting, so that potatoes infected with rhizoctonia can be discarded before planting. It is equally important to loosen the soil after rain to prevent a crust from forming. In this case, favorable conditions are not created for the fungus that causes the disease.
Treating potatoes before planting with a 1.5% boric acid solution also protects them from infection with rhizoctonia. The volume of solution should be prepared at the rate of 50 ml per 1 kg of tubers.
The disease is most severe during cold and wet seasons. Microspores persist in potatoes or plant residues for up to two years. When cutting seed material if there are infected tubers among it, for example, when growing potatoes from eyes, infection of healthy ones is possible. Therefore, do not forget to remove diseased bushes from your area. Cut off the tops before digging up the crop so that rhizoctonia bacteria do not have time to get from the leaves to the tubers. Be sure to germinate the seed material in order to remove diseased potatoes in time. Be sure to warm the seed material in the sun, dry it, and green it before putting it away for storage.
Dry rot Dry rot is caused by several species of fungi of the genus Fusarium, hence the name fusarium dry rot. If, while periodically inspecting the potatoes in the basement, you find dry, depressed spots on the skin, this indicates that they are affected by Fusarium dry rot. These spots are the first symptoms of the disease. As a rule, they appear on the surface of the tuber. Gradually, the pulp under the stain dries out and becomes rotten. At the same time, the skin wrinkles and breaks. In the resulting voids, mycelium grows, that is, mycelium with ripening spores.
Section of a tuber with dry rot Several species of Fusarium fungi cause dry rot. Depending on the species, the spores look like grayish-white, yellowish or pink convex pads.
Where could this potato disease come from? This can be told by the location of the spots.
If dry rot appears on the tubers only at the stolon end (a small indentation on the potato where the stolon was attached), then all the soil in your garden is contaminated with this fungus. Let us explain: a stolon is a lateral underground shoot, at the end of which a potato tuber ripens. This is a potato “umbilical cord” through which the growing tuber receives nutrients from the bush.
And if the potatoes are affected from different sides, then the reason is improper harvesting and poor storage. Most often, the disease begins to rage where there were injuries, cuts, late blight or scab.
Your basement may be too warm. At elevated storage temperatures, dry rot quickly develops and spreads. As you know, the optimal storage temperature for potatoes is 1-3 degrees above zero.
Most methods for controlling this potato disease are aimed at preventing injury to tubers during harvesting or storage. Preventing damage to the surface of the potatoes will greatly help prevent infection.
If the soil on your site is contaminated, you should not plant potatoes there for at least five or six years. Green manure or grain crops sown in such a field will eliminate the fungus from the ground, but this may take several years. Therefore, the main thing is to prevent soil contamination. And this can only be achieved by careful selection of seed material.
Is it possible to eat potatoes infected with scab? Or should they be thrown away? Not at all. Select them, remove the damaged parts. Feel free to fry potatoes or make mashed potatoes for dinner.
On the contrary, it is not recommended to eat potatoes affected by dry rot. Even if you have a tuber affected only on one side, you should not eat the supposedly healthy other half. Throw away the entire tuber without any mercy.
To keep your potatoes healthy, select or buy high-quality seed material for planting. Pay attention to the characteristics of the variety, resistance to a particular disease. Dig up potatoes intended for future planting earlier than for food and storage, since the longer they are in the ground, the greater the likelihood of infection. Try to maintain crop rotation.
