A Gardeners Forum Forums General Discussion The Food Garden Forum Vegetable Gardening HELP!!! Desperately need an answer to a potato problem!!

Help!! I just started to harvest a couple of potato plants today, just to have some with dinner for the next few nights, and something is terribly WRONG!!!

The taters come out of the ground just fine. No problem there. The problem starts about an hour or so after I harvest. When I dig them up, the skins are nice and smooth. Beautiful spuds actually. Much better than anything I've been seeing in the store, that's for sure! I keep them in the shade until I can get around to washing them off, so I'm pretty sure sunlight is not the culprit.

But then, about an hour or so after digging up, when I go to wash them, they have something on the surface that reminds me for all the world of warts! It doesn't affect the taste of the tubers, and so far I just peel them off along with the skin. (sorry, but I've never developed a taste for tater skins!)

I am concerned for the viability of long term storage of these potatoes. Will this lessen the storage life? Most important of all...what the heck is this? How do I prevent it in the future? Am I doing something wrong?

My usual M.O. with our potato patch is to dig what we need. This can be at any point of the season after which point I feel confident that I'll find at least a few pounds of "baker" sized taters from each plant, along with a few hands full of smaller spuds for a yummy batch of new peas and potatoes. So, waiting for the plants to go dormant at the end of the season, and doing the whole water cessation for two weeks thing usually doesn't happen around here.

These are Chieftain and Pontiac Reds that this is happening to. The Burbank Russets so far do not show the slightest sign of this.I have yet to dig up any of the Yukon Golds to see if this happens to them as well. I thought at first this might be a problem intrinsic to thin skinned potatoes, but the blues that we've harvested a few weeks ago are doing just fine (and are absolutely delicious I might add!) and show no signs of this nasty scabby warty thing happening to them either.

ANY information or insight that anyone is willing to share is greatly appreciated. I really need an answer to this before it drives me up the ever loving wall!!

Wonder if what your potatoes have is potato scab disease. I found this:

Common scab is caused by Streptomyces scabies, which can cause disease on potato, beet, radish, rutabaga, turnip, carrot, and parsnip. It is economically important only on potatoes, and found in most areas where potatoes are grown. The quality of the crop is seriously decreased, although the yield is almost unaffected. Affected potatoes usually store as well as healthy potatoes.

I had thought the same thing as well, until I went in search of a description of potato Scab....and the problem is that they don't come out of the ground looking like that...just about an hour AFTER I dig them up.

Maybe it has something to do with letting them sit for the better part of an hour in the basket, with a towel over them to protect them from the sun, before I finally got around to washing and drying them.

So, right out of the ground: Smooth and just as lovely as can be. Within an hour after harvest: Scabby looking. Anybody have a clue? Because, obviously, I'm completely clueless here! As I mentioned in my original post, this appears to be affecting only the red varieties of spuds. The russets, blues and gold haven't a single blemish on them.

Any help and advice is very greatly appreciated. Taters are my FAVORITE crop out of the entire garden!!! I'd grow nothing but spuds if the DH would let me get away with it!!

Thanks for helping me search Bestofour.I really do appreciate it! I think we're still in the answer hunting stage though! *sigh*

I been growing the same 3 types as you are for several years now, this year I did noticed the same thing on several of the reds but only when they came out of the ref. They all tasted great after steeming them.

Please let us know if you find something on the matter.

AAAH HAAA!!! So I'm NOT crazy after all!! That's good to know! I am still searching. I think my next step is maybe going to be a visit to the WSU extension office. Surely someone there would know what is happening on these otherwise lovely spuds! When I find out, I promise, I'll post it here immediately!!

Ok Serrin, maybe Nematodes (Root Knot) A little bad worm in our dirt that likes the stuff as much as we do :)