The worldwide french fry market was too cutthroat, they said. The summer of 1995 was the worst for late blight in the Mid-Columbia. Potato plants withered, yields fell, and some potatoes were condemned because the tubers had been infected. Potato tubers with the blight will quickly disintegrate in storage and ooze a foul, black liquid. We may think of potatoes as rugged when compared with other crops, but they can be as delicate as a hothouse flower.
Potatoes require greater attention than most crops, more fertilizer and, now, more fungicides.
Farmers begin to dose their fields in May and continue on a regular basis. When not using fungicide cocktails, farmers rely on tidiness to battle the disease. They try to clean up all cull mounds and kill all volunteer potatoes growing in land destined to be rotated to other crops. Copyright 1997 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved.