The tops of potatoes turn black: the reason and what to do?

Before digging up the crop, the tops of potatoes turn yellow and dry slightly. This is considered the norm, but if the tops of the potatoes have dried up and turned black, while the tubers are not yet ripe, in this case one can judge the disease that has arisen. Moreover, such changes occur unexpectedly, rather quickly.

Let's look at the main causes of blackening of the tops of potatoes and what to do to avoid or eliminate the problem.

Reasons

Everyone who grows potatoes, the main goal is to get a he althy crop of tubers. And everyone tries to properly care for them, timely spud, remove weeds. How nice it is to admire your work when the potatoes bloom with white or purple flowers.

But it happens that, despite the efforts, black spots appear on the plant for 2-3 days. The tops become black-yellow, gradually dry up. In less than half a week, instead of lush potato bushes, bare dry stems stick out.

Why do potato leaves turn black? This mainly happens if the plant has become infected with a fungal disease called late blight.
Plants that are planted too close are especially quickly affected by this disease. It is worth getting spores on one plant, as thanks to the wind, dew and rain, they are transferred to other leaves and stems. So a large area of potatoes is gradually affected by the disease. Therefore, you need to know what control measures should be taken against late blight in order to protect your crop.

Most often, plants are exposed to this disease when the period of budding and flowering begins. Therefore, it is necessary to consider the condition of the potato leaves. Darkening of the lower ones is the beginning of late blight.

From the history of late blight

This disease began to manifest itself 200 years ago. It has a fungal nature, so it is difficult to fight it. Late blight gradually affects the entire plant: first it is found on the leaves, passes to the stem, flowers, and then interferes with the development of the root crop. Initially, it is noticed in the lower part in the form of a white coating, then the leaves turn black and dry.

The reason for the blackening of the tops of potatoes is most often cold, wet weather, with prolonged rains. Once the top of the plant has dried out, the tubers stop growing.

Other diseases

In addition to late blight, there are other diseases that lead to blackening of the tops and stems. Almost all of them are fungal in nature, they develop very quickly thanks to bacteria.

Potato tops turned black if exposed:

• Alternaria;
• fusarium;
• rhizoctoniosis;
• black leg.

In some cases, improper care leads to blackening of potato tops - this is soil in the form of clay that retains moisture, as a result, the root part begins to rot. The reason is frequent heavy rains.

Control and prevention measures

The danger of the disease lies in the fact that it spreads very quickly, in just a few days large areas are covered, the leaves on the potatoes darken, wither and dry very quickly. It is almost impossible to get rid of the disease and stop its spread.

What to do to prevent late blight?

It is necessary to observe the prevention of potato disease, namely:

• As soon as the buds begin to appear, it is necessary to process the tops by spraying the plants with a spray bottle. After 2 weeks, it is desirable to carry out the treatment again. If the weather is rainy and humid, a third treatment is required.
• Unfortunately, this fungal disease affects not only the ground part, but also potato tubers. Due to rain washings, spores of the fungus fall on the tubers. When harvesting diseased plants, they must be completely removed from the field, otherwise the spores of the fungus will persist next year and infect the next crop.

The best prevention is to change the place where potatoes are planted every year.

• Before harvesting, it is recommended to mow the affected stems with a sickle, dry a little and burn. They should not be placed in compost bins. First, it is advisable to treat the tubers with the Prestige preparation, which is an excellent prevention of fungal diseases.
• It is recommended to germinate tubers. It is better to do this in the light, as you can see potatoes affected by late blight, remove diseased tubers. Black spots appear on diseased potatoes. Planting sprouted potatoes gives more guarantees in getting a he althy crop, as they will have time to ripen much faster until autumn fogs and cold rains appear.
• In order for the soil to warm up faster in spring, it is better to cover the area under potatoes with agrospan: that is, with mulching material, black.
• Tomatoes cannot be planted next to potatoes, because they belong to the nightshade family. Among their diseases stem late blight occurs. Tomatoes get sick, and then potato stalks and potato tops get infected as well.
• When harvesting, it is necessary to carefully sort out the tubers, because among them there are potatoes affected by the fungus. Potatoes must be dried in the sun, but not yet stored in the cellar for at least 2-3 weeks. Then once again sort out all the plants.

Features of choosing a potato variety

If late blight is very common, it is recommended to find potato varieties that are least susceptible to this disease. But after a few years, it is recommended to update the acquired variety, because after a while its protection qualities are lost.

It is imperative to look for varieties with a record that it is the least susceptible to late blight. But when buying seeds, it is necessary to take into account that this variety is suitable for a given area and soil composition.

The following varieties are considered resistant to fungal diseases:

• Fairy tale.
• Sudarushka.
• Good luck.
• Wizard.
• Laura.
• Pigeon.

When choosing a variety, you must always remember this insidious potato disease, buy seeds taking into account disease resistance.

How and how to spray potatoes?

For spraying, it is better to choose a dry sunny day. For this, morning or evening hours are suitable. It is advisable to check the weather forecast for that day. Precipitation is undesirable at least 5-6 hours after treatment. After all, if you wash off the chemicals, then their protective properties weaken.

When processing, it is necessary to observe safety measures: dress properly so that there is no contact of the chemical with human skin.

Chemicals

Of course, I want to choose the most effective and less toxic chemicals. For these purposes, Bordeaux liquid is most often used. It contains blue vitriol and lime.

They are bred in water at the rate of: half a glass of blue vitriol and the same amount of lime. They are added to a bucket of water and mixed thoroughly. Potato tops are sprayed with this liquid.

Chemical preparations are considered the most used preventive measures:

• Agate.
• Hom.
• Max.
• Oxychom.
• Fitosporin.
• Trichocin.
• Gamair.

But very often rains shorten the duration of fungicides, so you have to treat plants more often. But everyone who carries out the prevention of late blight should know that 15-20 days before harvesting, plant processing stops.

Folk methods for processing

Garlic tincture is considered an excellent remedy for blackened leaves on potatoes.You can make it like this: take about 100 g of garlic cloves, grind on a grater and add to a bucket of water. Insist about 24 hours. In order to form a film, rubbed laundry soap is added to the tincture. They wait until the soap dissolves, then the infusion is filtered and used to spray potato tops.

This treatment should preferably be done every 2 weeks.

To folk effective means include - whey, which is obtained after the preparation of cottage cheese. If late blight potato leaves are difficult to treat, then prevention is necessary to protect your crop. And most importantly, processing is recommended to be carried out in a timely and systematic manner, only then can he althy potatoes be grown.

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