POTATO BLIGHT

Evening Star, Issue 16514, 28 August 1917, Page 6

POTATO BLIGHT

SUCCESSFUL LIME TREATMENT. Mr W. Harris, Fields Inspector, Ohakuiie, supplies to the ' Journal of Agriculture' some particulars regarding a means of controlling potato blight by dusting the plauts with lime. The treatment was adopted by him some years ago, when farm manager at the Papatoetoo Orphanage, near Auckland. He stales t "This method was adopted when, in suite of steeping the tubers and regular spraying, the blight appeared, and by its means I was able to save crops when not a potato plant was left standing within miles. I usually got a number of boys with buckets, and instructed them to throw tho lime with force along the ground between the rows. The plants being wet (for the blight always appeared on a moist, muggy morning) the lime adhered to every part of the plant, including tho under side of the loaves. The affected leaves soon fall off, leaving the stems stiff and erect, with numerous young shoots still fresh and green, and usually within a week the tows are again filled up with luxuriant foliage. After leaving Papatoetoo I only grew small crops for my own tise, and never sprayed at all, pinning my faith' to the lime-dust-ing ; sometime* two or three applications were necessary during the season. It may be luck, but I have never had a singles blight-diseased tuber for 10 years. I use shell-lime, but fresh hydraulic-lime slacked as required would be just as suitable. The main idea is to have the limo fresh and to ..throw it between the rows with such force as to create quite a cloud over all the patch."