TREATMENT OF POTATO CROPS

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 27, 1 February 1930, Page 6 (Supplement)

TREATMENT OF POTATO CROPS

Small cultivators generally whose potatoes are seriously attacked by disease should not allow the blackened haulm to remain on the ground. If it is left there the haulm may not only affect the tubers of the plants attacked, but spread the disease to neighbouring potato plants. The diseased haulm should be cut off without delay, removed from the plot, and promptly burnt. Even in the case of potatoes which; are not infected with disease it is< often advisable after the -plants haye begun to die down and the leaves are turning yellow to-cut..off, remove, and burn the liaulm. When the crop has reached this stage of development the tubers in any case ■ make little or no further growth, hence the removal of the dying-down haulm will not result in any loss of crop. On the other hand, if allowed to remain, the haulm may become diseased and lead to the, tubers, becoming diseased also. Mature potatoes, the haulm of which has been cut away in the manner suggested, will take no harm from lying in the Soil "until the ground is dry enough and the weather sufficiently fine for convenient lifting. Once'-, the potatoes are out of the ground they should only be left exposed long 'enough to become thoroughly dried; then they should be immediately sorted over and stored.