An ongoing research trial is looking at protecting California potatoes from southern blight. The pathogen is particularly concerning because there are no California registrations for potato fungicides that include southern blight. Some fungicides have provided varying levels of benefit but are not been highly effective. Kern County Vegetable Crops Advisor Jaspreet Sidhu has been working on a project to help growers better manage the disease.
“Our main goal for this project is to evaluate the fungicides for their efficacy in managing this disease in the field and also to look at the effective timing. What will be the effective timing of application for these fungicides to maximize their efficacy,” Sidhu noted. “So, this year and last year we just looked at a number of fungicides. We had 12 different treatments and a couple of them seemed promising.”
Listen to the radio report below.
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