(Irish) Potato Famine Fungus Found in Plattsburgh (NY)

WCAX ^ | 6/30/09

[Straight Vermonter]

The plant fungus that caused the Irish Potato Famine in the 1840s has shown up in Plattsburgh, and experts say residents need to act quickly.

It's called "late blight" and it affects eggplants, potatoes and tomatoes. The fungus hasn't made it this far north in about a decade, but it moves quickly and can kill an infected plant in as short as a week and a half. The signs that your plants have late blight are brownish lesions on the leaves which make them look wet. Late blight was discovered in the region at unnamed major box stores on Friday. It came to the area because a vegetable wholesaler apparently sold the stores infected tomato plants.

Officials say if you've bought any tomato, eggplant or potato plants that were not grown locally you should throw them out. However, do not compost or burn the infected plant because the spores will travel up to four miles.

[La Enchiladita]

They said the spuds are blighted, not bloated... hehe.

[La Enchiladita]

Makes perfect sense. New York’s had nothing but rain for months, so I’ve heard. Pray for drought:)

[Petronski]

Sorry, what I meant to say is that particular kind of shovel.

As I said, I’ve never grown them before.

[Constitutionalist Conservative]

Where in Ireland did they come from?

My sister-in-law has been working hard to trace our family records, but apparently the trail goes cold in Ireland. No records indicating where my immigrant ancestors lived over there.

This was probably intentional, because from what I heard, they most likely came into the US illegally (via Canada).

[Just mythoughts]

I use a ‘potato’ fork. Something like a pitchfork but smaller and the tines are more flattened and rounded so as to help prevent from digging into the potatoes instead of dirt. Potatoes grow near the top of the soil and can easily sunburn when the vines die down. A sunburned potato is green and bitter. The potato will continue to grow even after the vine dies down and needs to have some sort of mulch or soil covering over the top. I have found that at least 3 inches of straw works best as it is easiest to remove. This fork works also for digging out sweet potatoes.

This year I am hoping my soil is fluffy enough I can dig in with my bare hands.

[gardengirl]

Y’all are worried about ONE little blight? Bwahaha

We have early blight, late blight,....

Seriously, check your plants. If you find any infected ones, get rid of them. My personal choice is to burn them, but the article said not to. Having no experience with this particular blight, I’ll take the author’s word for it. What ever you do—DO NOT put infected plants on your compost pile!

Bag them and put them in the trash? I don’t know.

We grow most of our own plants, but we get a few things from Bonnie’s. Vidalias mostly. Any time the conditions are too wet, you’re going to get funky things. Of course, hot dry weather brings its own set of problems.

Best thing you can do is be aware and act accordingly. Keep a close eye on your plants and the weather.

[Red_Devil 232]

I am not worried just passing along some info.

[djf]

They need lots of potassium. Potassium is used by plants to create starches, which most root/tuber type vegetables have a lot of.

[dforest]

Thank you, I am giving it a try. We have had some odd weather this year. Not sure what I will get out of my garden.

The last 10 days we had really hot weather and sun. Before that we had too much rain and cloudiness.

Now it is cool and cloudy.

I guess I will have to take what I get.

[70times7]

My family had a rather big garden when I was growing up. A neighbor who was perhaps in his 60s in the early 70's told us to use a pitch fork (short "D" handle w/ 5 tines) to turn over the dirt.

He was a proud Irishman, and knew what it meant to do things the "old fashioned" way. As a young man he worked as a blacksmith. Back then he and his wife were still keeping chickens for eggs and a cow for dairy.

I suspect he knew what he was talking about. That's what we used and it worked well. Not sure how good your luck will be finding one though, the one we used was his and was probably already and antique then.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks for the pings Red_Devil 232 and investigateworld.

[gardengirl]

Thanks for the heads up, Red!

My last comment wasn’t directed at you, necessarily. I just always forget to put everyone’s handle in the address box. LOL

[gardengirl]

Hijacking the thread here—

Why are they still vacant? Do the vacant houses still belong to English landlords? Are the houses taboo/sacred? Are they just empty b/c no one wants to live in them? It can’t be that hard to reroof, altho they are probably pretty small by today’s standards.

Just curious.

My mom was showing me some genealogy stuff the other night online. Kentucky census stuff from the mid 1800’s. A lot of those people were born in Kty, and listed their parent’s birthplace as Kty. It seems there were a lot more people here a lot earlier than what we “learned” in history class.

[dforest]

Thanks. I do think pitchforks could be making a comeback very soon!

[tubebender]

Use a pitch fork if you must use a tool but if your soil is loose you can dig them by hand. Some varieties set spuds really deep and you will have potatoes where you don’t want them next year. On the other hand you will have spuds really early >:o

[Just mythoughts]

Thank you, I am giving it a try. We have had some odd weather this year. Not sure what I will get out of my garden. The last 10 days we had really hot weather and sun. Before that we had too much rain and cloudiness. Now it is cool and cloudy. I guess I will have to take what I get.

You are most welcome. When you dig into them start out at least a couple of feet out from the base of the plant and go deep to get under the potatoes. Better to dig lots of dirt than to stab a potato in harvesting.

We too started off with lots of water and then hot hot hot steamy heat. I think 108 was our top heat index. I have nine rows of corn and mid June a storm blew threw and laid down every stalk of corn. So I in ankle plus deep mud stood each one back up but it made my soil in the middle like bricks and even though it is still somewhat moist I can hardly get a hoe to slice off a sliver of dirt. Then this past weekend a front moved through and laid down half of the corn the opposite direction without the 3-4 inches of rain that came with the earlier front. Now we are having nights in the low 60's and highs of 85. I am itching big time to dig into my potatoes, but I bought 10 lbs of potatoes a week ago on sale as my potato vines were still standing real tall. But now they are starting to lay down and so I plan to check them out after I get the 10 lbs of potatoes used. I finally got one bed of sweet potatoes out and hoping to get the other one done tomorrow.

[Citizen Soldier]

I guess you have to emigrate to Ireland

[70times7]

I do think pitchforks could be making a comeback very soon!

If only they pulled double duty in the hands of an angry mobs on the way to all capital buildings...

[dforest]

I would prefer to use the pitchforks on the backsides of Congress.

Rotten taters all of them.

[driftless2]

The houses are ruins basically. The great majority have been vacant for over one hundred years. Most are not very big, not much bigger than a log cabin. I guess the owners of the land where the ruined houses exist don’t really want to try to renovate them as it would probably be pointless. There’s also plenty of ruined castles around Ireland. The only inhabitants are probably ghosts of the people dead from from hunger or disease. Incidentally, from what we observed, many Irish now live in very nice houses.