Second earlies potato varieties

[Brisel]

I'm pretty ignorant on spud growing, so please bar with me. I need to source seed for 1 acre of potatoes for harvesting June/July onwards. Hand sown on high pH soil & fairly low input. No current potato equipment available though I'm hoping a mate will be able to hire me a ridger.

What varieties should I be considering or not considering?

 

[Great In Grass]

The cheese & onion flavour ones.

 

[Breckland Boy]

What's your market?

Salads; Maris Peer, Balana, Charlotte
Bakers; Marfona, Estima

The list is vast, have you any irrigation?

 

[Brisel]

What's your market?

Salads; Maris Peer, Balana, Charlotte
Bakers; Marfona, Estima

The list is vast, have you any irrigation?

This is just a slightly upscaled garden venture! Irrigation will consist of a sprinkler on mains water.

Probably a mix of varieties - salads and bakers

 

[Breckland Boy]

Will they get blight sprays?
If not there are varieties that are less susceptible to blight.

 

[Lincs Lass]

If you can get any then Desiree or Romano,,old varieties but multi use ,red skined,,I'm using one called Cultra ,can use them for anything,,also saffire and sunita.

 

[Brisel]

Will they get blight sprays?
If not there are varieties that are less susceptible to blight.

The boss won't want much in the way of chemicals applied, so Bordeaux Mixture at best. Yes, blight resistant varieties would be great thanks.

 

[Lincs Lass]

An old first early was Vanessa ,drought and blight resistant

 

[Exfarmer]

We used to grow potatoes as a boy , by ploughing them in with a two furrow plough, then lifting with a scuffle. Not very efficient but did the job.

 

[AndrewM]

used to grow maris bard here for chip shop trade, also make good boiled potatoes

 

[Lincs Lass]

Alot of King edwards round here ,used to be one grower had nothing else ,,put the lot into cold stores ,,not open them up till May ,,they were worth a fortune.

 

[bitwrx]

Thinking ahead, a former employer of mine had an old potato harvester/lifter machine that they used to harvest their domestic supply with (no doubt behind their old David Brown).

If it would be helpful I can ask if it might be for sale/hire. Not far from you, and from memory it would easily go on a trailer behind a pickup

 

[Lincs Lass]

You will have to take into account the tuber count ,,the smaller they are ,the closer you plant them ,,If I remember rightly ,,a 50kg sack of 55m-65mm seed had approx 900 ,,then plant at 9 inch spacings ,roughly 1 tn per acre

 

[Bogweevil]

The boss won't want much in the way of chemicals applied, so Bordeaux Mixture at best. Yes, blight resistant varieties would be great thanks.

oh if only copper fungicides were still approved. Do think the guvnor would be OK with mancozeb?

 

[David.]

Go a long way to beat Pentland Javelin for flavour imo. Lovely second early before skin set, and really good roasters if kept with set skins.

 

[Cowcorn]

Hard to beat British Queens for flavour in the second early slot .
Dont know how the would cope under severe blight pressure. You might be busy with the bluestone and washing soda or maybe as bogweevil suggested mancozeb ?? Ah them were the days when we were young and innocent " creaming " the maneb before adding the bucket of cream to the spray tank. Cost feck all and as long as you kept the intervals short was very effective .

 

[Brisel]

oh if only copper fungicides were still approved. Do think the guvnor would be OK with mancozeb?

Bordeaux Mixture is copper sulphate and slaked lime. I'm sure I could sneak some mancozeb in somewhere, especially when I show him the Safety Data sheets for copper sulphate!

 

[riverside2]

Can ceratinly sort you a tonne of decent 35x55 Marfona out if you wanted to message me...........

 

[MrNoo]

You need some old Fergie kit, be ideal for 1 ac!!

 

[New Puritan]

There's two threads running on people growing small areas of spuds now. Are you all hunkering down for the apocalypse? Planting them by hand (with the help of a ridger) isn't too bad, but digging them all up by hand is a massive pain in the arse.