Fungicidal treatment can provide excellent coverage early on because you can go in with tractors and spray. If it occurs late in the growing season you usually have to hire crop dusters. Hermiston-area growers also seem to have minimized losses from late blight, according to Jeffrey McMorran, an OSU Extension agent and agronomist in Umatilla County. About 80 percent of the potatoes have been harvested. Yields are good, but not spectacular.
Quality is good.
There was a great fear of late blight early in the season because of the cool, damp weather conditions, but it looks like early intervention with fungicides kept it from becoming a wide-spread problem.