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Rotten Potatoes

R

rustyacres sd

Member
Dug some potatoes last night, some of the potatoes are rotten and mushy and other ones are real nice. Have Russets, Pontiac Reds, and Youkon golds planted. Been no rain for a month and a half. The ground is hard about 7 inches down. Vines are dead and have been for a good 2 weeks. What is the cause of this. Going to put the middle buster on the MF135 and dig/plow them up this weekend.
 
Not enough water, spuds have died and gone into decay. Just like anything else underground.

Probably should have been diggin' a month ago?

Just my 2¢.

Allan
 

We dug ours about a month ago. Yukons and red Norberts. The majority were very nice, but we did find a few that were totally rotten, and several more that were soft and mushy. No rain here either, but we watered regularly. A couple of years ago we had too much rain and ALL of the taters rotted in the ground.
 
Just not a great year for potatoes, at least here at my place in central MN. Red Pontiacs died off a month ago, none larger than a golf ball.
Russets and Yukon Golds held on till this week, now they are dieing off. Dug a few and some are baseball size but nothing remarkable.
No potato bugs this year though, which is wierd.
 
You are right,not enough water. Kept our 100 ft. row well watered with plenty of nitrogen. Dug six, 5 gallon buckets full with hardly a rotten one in the bunch. Potatoes like water and nitrogen after blooming. Joe
 
Since I saw your post about rotting potatoes I went out and dug mine. Didn't notice any rotten ones, the yukons did better than I expected and the reds did worse. They werent' watered but did have mulch.
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I have never heard of water or the lack of it causing potatoes to rot in the ground. I usually leave mine in the ground until danger of freeze up and they seem fine. The odd time one will be spoiled or rotten for some unknown reason. My biggest problem some years is that the tops die off early from some sort of blight.
 
Lack of water and fert. We raise over 200 acres and they require atleast 1 inch of water weekly. We have 1 field dying off already which I am not impressed with, but will have to deal with it. We quite often put on liquid nitrogen and other micro-nutrients on with our weekly blight spray to keep them going. The cooler the weather, the better they like it. When checking irrigation in the night, the plants are standing tall, and in the heat of the day, they are wilted.
 
Often the seed potoato you planted will deteriorate, rot, dry up, etc. Could it be you're digging up the origional seed?
 
(quoted from post at 13:07:35 08/03/12) Often the seed potoato you planted will deteriorate, rot, dry up, etc. Could it be you're digging up the origional seed?
Click to expand...

Not when 3 or 4 potatos in the same hill are bad.
 
(quoted from post at 16:07:35 08/03/12) Often the seed potoato you planted will deteriorate, rot, dry up, etc. Could it be you're digging up the origional seed?
Click to expand...

That would be my thought, maybe even the bacteria from the rotting seed was in close proximity to the new ones...

I dug 300 pounds last week and had some seed pieces come up, they smell pretty ripe in 90 degree heat. My vines are just starting to die back on the short season varieties, but I wanted some fresh ones to eat.
 
For what it's worth. The man said water em and fertilizer.were eating our russerts now and boy what a great tasteing firm spud. sounds like your spuds rotted from way to much fertilizer and water mix with hard soil. Sorry you are loosing em. LOU
 
"No rain here either, but we watered regularly."
What was your advice? No water other then mother natures supply and No fertilizer? Talking out both sides of your mouth?lol LOU.
 
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