Keep 'em cool and keep good humidity, and you can be selling potatoes you harvested in August all the way through next July. Everyone knows what to do with a baker, but most people don't know how to use the specialty varieties. So it's still a very, very small percentage of the overall crop. This isn't the first time a lack of variety in the potato crop has presented growers a challenge. Some scholars contend that the 19th-century Irish Potato Famine, caused by a blight, could have been mitigated if more varieties had been planted in Ireland.
Some varieties of potato are resistant to the fungus.
Others are resistant to other kinds of blight. Lumper potatoes were completely vulnerable. These days, the blight facing potato growers is financial rather than fungal. And it seems ironic that this time the problem is caused by potatoes being resistant to rot. If we could learn from history, we might start growing more varieties of potatoes and learning to enjoy a little more diversity in our produce.