Potato Cancer

2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38

Potato cancer is an incredibly harmful disease that attacks all parts of growing crops, with the exception of the roots. This ailment came to Russia during the Great Patriotic War, when the German army imported nourishing tubers for its own consumption, and at the moment, potato cancer is noted in twenty-three constituent entities of the Russian Federation. The harvest from the infected areas is extremely low, therefore, in order not to completely lose it, it is urgent to take appropriate measures

A few words about the disease

Cancer attacks almost all parts of potato plantings, affecting even flowers with leaves. Only the roots remain intact. However, the leaves are also not affected very often, so in most cases it is not possible to visually determine whether the potato is infected or not. If the leaves were not affected by the ill-fated misfortune and the potato bushes look quite normal, the ailment can only be detected if one or another bush is dug up.

The manifestation of potato cancer is noted in the form of an overgrowth of potato tissue, accompanied by the formation of outwardly cauliflower outgrowths. The size of such growths can be equal to several millimeters or reach ten centimeters or more. The peel in the places of their appearance is slightly discolored, and numerous wounds begin to appear on the potatoes, serving as a gateway for a wide variety of ailments.

When parts of growing crops are damaged underground, the growths first have a pinkish or whitish color, and only after a while they begin to darken. And the growths on the aerial parts are distinguished by a greenish color - this is due to the formation of chlorophyll in them. Once in the soil, the affected parts burst, and millions of spores are released from them.

Infected tubers begin to rot closer to the time of harvest or even later, during storage. They quickly turn into a slimy mass of brownish shades and are characterized by an extremely unpleasant smell, similar to the smell of spoiled herring. After some time, the rotten tubers disintegrate, and as a result of their decay, millions of the most diverse forms of the wintering pathogen penetrate into the soil.

The causative agent of potato cancer is a pathogenic fungus called Synchytrium endobioticum that can persist in soil for up to twenty years. In addition, this mushroom overwinters excellently on potato tubers.

The spread of potato cancer often occurs with infected nodules or with soil particles adhered to them or with the root system. There are also cases of infection when transplanting crops from infected areas and through the equipment used when processing such areas. Manure is an equally serious source of infection - if you feed raw tops or tubers to livestock, harmful spores will not lose their viability even when passing through their gastrointestinal tract.

It is noteworthy that potato cancer poses absolutely no danger to humans. In addition to potatoes, it is also capable of infecting some nightshade crops (tomatoes, etc.), only in this case the root system is also affected in the plants.

How to fight

The best prevention of potato cancer is the use of exceptionally healthy seed material, the cultivation of infection-resistant varieties (Gatchinsky, Nevsky, Lugovskoy, Agria, Otrada, Temp, Pribrezhny, etc.) and the refusal to plant potatoes on infected soils.

All potato plantings must be systematically inspected, and if unhealthy specimens are found, they should be removed along with the nodules and roots. At the same time, the tops must be dried and burned, and the stolons with nodules must be buried in a hole at least a meter deep and disinfected with a 2.5% nitrafen solution.