I’ve grown Queen potatoes for years and really love their taste and floury texture, but I hate having to spray them against blight. Are there any other more blight-resistant varieties that you’d recommend instead? Martin F, Co Kildare
Solanum ‘Queen’ (more properly known as ‘British Queen’) is a second-early, high-yielding variety of potato first introduced into cultivation back in 1894. Famed for its floury, flavoursome flesh, it’s long been a favourite in Ireland. But you’re right in saying that it has poor resistance to potato blight, a fungal disease that can quickly destroy the tubers and make them inedible. Both modern fungicidal foliar sprays and copper-based sprays have traditionally been used to control the disease, but come at a cost to soil health and biodiversity that many gardeners find hard to justify. On top of this, the disease is mutating in ways that are making it increasingly resistant to these sprays.
But the good news for organically minded gardeners is that a host of new, flavoursome varieties with good blight resistance have been introduced into cultivation in recent years. These typically require no spraying regime and can be relied upon to stay healthy and productive.
Examples include ‘Allouette’, a versatile, second-early salad variety suitable for roasting, chipping, baking and boiling, and with excellent disease resistance. Another is ‘Twister’, which also stands out for its blight resistance as well as its productivity. Neither have quite the same floury perfection of a ‘Queen’ potato but are still noted for their flavour.
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Early varieties like these produce a crop more quickly than maincrop varieties (12-14 weeks versus 16-22 weeks) so typically have a better chance of dodging blight, which becomes more of a risk as the growing season progresses. But many new maincrop varieties introduced in recent years also show high levels of blight resistance. These include ‘Kelly’, ‘Sevilla’ and ‘Levante’ all of which has that floury texture that you love and are high yielding. Irish suppliers include fruithillfarm.com and quickcrop.ie.
Whatever variety you choose, there are other useful ways to reduce the threat of blight to your potato crop this year. These include using seed potatoes sourced from a reputable supplier and certified free from disease; avoiding planting potatoes in the same place in which you grew them in the past two to three years; avoiding planting seed potatoes too close together to reduce the risk of creating conditions favourable to the spread of blight; watching out for blight warnings and for early signs of the disease with the aim of cutting back and removing diseased foliage before it has a chance to spread and reach the tubers underground. It’s also best to remove any “volunteers” (any potatoes or parts of potatoes) left in the ground from previous years, which typically start to sprout in late spring, as these can also potentially carry the risk of disease.
