Controlling blight is of paramount importance to all potato growers, whether big or small.
Research over the past two years by Dr Stephen Kildea and others in Teagasc Oak Park has shown the type of blight Ireland is getting now is changing compared to the type (A1) we had to deal with for the past 100 years or so. This change has been tracked in recent years across Europe and more recently in Britain.
The new strain (an A2 type called Blue 13) is now dominant in Britain and populations are increasing rapidly in Ireland. The team in Oak Park believe this more competitive and ultimately more aggressive strain of blight is displacing the old blight strains quite rapidly.
