Common Pests of Potatoes

Late blight on potato leaves

I recently had the opportunity to speak at the Utah State University Vegetable IPM Winter Webinar Series (January 20, 2021). Nick Volesky and I talked about common insect and disease problems of potatoes. It wasn’t possible to discuss all diseases, or spend a lot of time on the diseases we did discuss, but we were able to give a thumbnail view of some common diseases. We briefly covered the following topics:

  • The role of seed certification
  • The importance of quarantines, eradication, sanitation, fertility, and proper irrigation
  • Fusarium dry rot
  • Rhizoctonia canker and black scurf
  • Late blight
  • Early blight
  • White mold
  • Pink rot
  • Pythium leak

A handout of the meeting slides is available here: Common_Pests_of_Potato_Diseases

The video of the meeting is available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0A9sey8av5k