POTATO BLIGHT.

Ohinemuri Gazette, Volume XXI, Issue 2726, 2 December 1910, Page 3

POTATO BLIGHT.

HOPE IN THE SUNLIGHT

TREATMENT,

Mr D. M'Alpine, Vegetable Pathologist to the Victorian Government, has been experimenting with the drying process for stamping out Irish Blight in potatoes (Phytophthora infestans), and a recent newspaper paragraph states that seed potatoes subjected to a temperature of between 120 and 130 degrees Fahr.,

planted on ah area at Burnley, Horticultural Gardens,^ grew equally as well as untreated potatoes alongside.

Jensen has for many years advocated the treatment of seeds by heat to destroy fungi. Mr M'Alpine's process requires exposure of the potatoes to the high temperature for four hours —a period which would no doubt present difficulties if the work were to be done on a commercial scale. Observations made in the New South Wales Bureau of Microbiology, so far as they have gone, indicate that there may be some value in the method, but the work has not reached a conclusive stage. Some efforts made to treat potatoes on a large scale gave very irregular results. However, further observations are in progress. Mr G. F. Kibblewhite, Experimentalist of Grafton Experiment Farm, New bouth Wales, in following up the work of Mr D. M'Alpine, Vegetable Pathologist to the Victorian Government, suggests that experiments might be devised to test the effect of exposing the tubers to strong sunlight at a maximum natural temperature. There is a distinction between mere heating and exposure to sunlight—the latter having special effects (says the " Agricultural Gazette of New South Wales"). The point has been noted by the Bureau of Microbiology for obser-

vation, and inquiries in connection therewith have ascertained that blight has occurred in potatoes so exposed, it being the practice of some farmers to expose and " green " their seed potatoes prior to planting. It is possible that conditions may be. found that, will do'

better,