My potatoes have rough corky scabby patches on the skin and buyers reject them. How do I manage scab?
How to control common scab on potato (aloo) tubers in alkaline soil?
VVijay Pal6mo ago · 285 views
4 Answers
🌾Farmer.in Krishi TeamExpert ✓6mo ago
Common scab gives rough, corky patches on the skin that do not usually rot but spoil the look and cut your price. It is favoured by alkaline, dry soil and is hard to cure once tubers are infected, so management is about prevention. Use certified, scab free seed and avoid carrying the disease on infected seed. Keep the soil evenly moist during tuber formation, since maintaining adequate moisture in that window is one of the most effective ways to reduce scab. Avoid fresh lime and avoid raising soil pH just before potato, and follow crop rotation away from potato and other host crops. Choosing less susceptible varieties also helps where scab is a regular problem. Get your soil tested through a Soil Health Card and ask your KVK for varieties and practices suited to your scab prone fields.
RRamesh Chand5mo ago
Keeping the soil moist right through tuber set was the biggest help in my scabby field. The years I let it dry out during tuber formation the scab was much worse. Steady irrigation in that window really does reduce it.
KKishan Pal Singh5mo ago
I stopped putting fresh lime and raw wood ash on my potato field. A neighbour limed heavily before potato and his scab shot up. If your soil is already on the alkaline side, do not push the pH higher just before this crop.
BBhupendra Yadav5mo ago
Carrying the disease on saved seed kept my problem going. Once I switched to certified seed and rotated the plot away from potato for a couple of seasons, the scab pressure came down. Cheap infected seed just plants the problem again.