Is this potato blight?

[squashyhat]

The foliage on my pink fir apple (maincrop) potatoes has started to go brown and shrivel. Is it potato blight or just natural die back?

What sort of weather have you had lately? It needs to be both warm and wet for blight.

There doesn't seem to be nearly as much around this year - see https://blight.hutton.ac.uk/BlightReport which normally has masses more reports by now. Elsewhere on that site you can sign up for alerts when the conditions in your area are right.

But in any case, it doesn't look as if most of that foliage is going to make any further contribution to the plant, in which case you may as well take it off now. You can leave the potatoes in the ground for a while thought. If it is blight, the advice is to harvest two weeks after you've taken the tops off, so that there aren't any live spores on the surface to infect the potatoes when you dig them up. Not that it matters if you're going to eat them straight away. Pink Fir Apple, yum yum, wouldn't last long in this house.

I'm halfway through digging up my pink fir apple potatoes, they’ve got blight. I think this variety is known to be prone to it. I took the shaws off three days ago. I knew you could leave them in the ground for about three weeks, but didn't know the advice was to leave them for two before digging because of contamination. Damn. We've had rain here practically every day, today is supposed to be sunny, which is why I started, but it's now overcast and just had a shower! Grrrr, I give up with the weather forecast.

anyway, my spuds are sound and lovely, hope they store well. Best of,luck with yours.

blight has a certain smell. have a sniff.

some potatos die down after flowering. I would lift some to see what's going on.

Thanks all. I'm in SE England and it's certainly been warm and damp. I will dig up a few.