This past season's russet type potatoes (some, not all) had ugly rusty colored sections in the center of the potato. They looked perfect on the outside with no sign whatsoever that something was going on inside. I was told it was probably due to the wet spring and summer we had here in CT. Our early potatoes, i.e., the reds, were not affected at all.
Any agreement or other diagnoses?
What's wrong with my potatoes?
playinindirt, when did you dig your potatoes? I gave some of my extra seed potatoes to a neighbor and he had a similar problem with his russets which were dug after a really hard freeze. We dug ours early and no problems. However, the Walla Walla onions which we eat first have rotten centers. These were dug after the first hard freeze. Normally we get up to three or four months storage of the Walla Walla's. Preseason or post season weather problems would be my best guess as well for your russets.
University of Nebraska has a great potato website. Check this page and if you don't find what you're looking for, they have a search feature. http://panhandle.unl.edu/web/potato/hollow_heart
mraider3 and Calalilly. . . thank you so much for your responses. We haven't had a hard frost yet where I am in northwest CT, so it isn't that. The University of Nebraska site was very helpful and, as suspected, the cool, wet weather was the culprit.
playinindirt, one other thing crossed my mind. Do you hill up your potatoes. Although we don't get much rain in the center of the valley, and we use soaker hoses for regular watering, on occasion we can get some real spring soakers. I hill my potatoes at least four times in the spring leaving a foot wide trench on either side of the mounds. Excessive water from a spring drencher goes to the trench and dissappears rather quickly in our porous soil. Not really sure that any of this will help you if you have really loamy soil that sponges up the excess water. You hear a lot about Idaho potoates, but Montana is also a big potato producer, possibly because of our porous soils.
You might consider ammending your potato patch to make it more pervious. The part I don't like about this solution is the time and expense of doing this each year if you rotate the areas where you plant your potatoes. My garden is large enough now where I can practice a five year rotational plan. I directly amend the areas where I am planting each year for each particular crop. Ammendments are largely in the use of composted horse manure and other additives (bone meal, blood meal, etc.) depending on the particular crop being planted. I purchased a seeder with a fertilizer attachment for certain row crops; and for tomatoes, peppers, squash, cucumbers I go directly into the mound or planting hole with my various mixes. Point being is that each crop gets its own particular soil adjustment. Whereever I plan to plant my potato rows I apply a layer of fresh horse manure in the fall and disc twice to thoroughly incorporate the green manure. Each discing consists of several passes and I repeat the process again in the spring. I know it sounds like work, and it is work, but so far we have had some really great potato crops by adhearing to our methods of cultivating.
One other thing of importance is regular weeding. Onions and potatoes don't do well if they are in competition with weeds. Obviously that holds true for most plants, but for some reason these two have less tollerance for weeds in out garden than other plants.
Appologies for the overkill response playinindirt, but I think your thread may invite some others to comment. I for one would like to see some more imput.
It sounds like the problem is "blackheart", very common in potatoes. It is caused by "Late Blight" the infamous cause of the Irish Famine of 1845. With the wet, cool weather we had this year, it was widespread. For some reason, in my experience, redskin potatoes are not as susceptible.
The first symptom is the appearance of dark, watery spots on the undersides of leaves. The dark centers quickly shrivel and dry and a mildew-like growth develops. Once potato leaves are infected, rain carries the disease spores underground to the tubers, which develop small brown or purple spots on their skins. When the potato is exposed to air, these blemishes develop into deep pits and if the potato is sliced the interior is rull of red-brown rot.
This disease also infects tomatoes causing the fruit to develop dark spots and rot on the vine.
Maybe this is a separate condition or disease, but I've also heard that blackheart can be caused by the use of manure that is too fresh. Be sure to use, like mraider3, only well-rotted manure and mix it in well. Rotation is also a good practice, but most people don't remember that potatoes, tomatoes, and eggplants are all in the same family and should not be planted in the same area as any of them grew the previous year.
HoosierGreen, nice response. After reading you comment on rotating of potatoes and tomatoes I went back and looked at my five year rotational plan. I messed up this year by planting potatoes where I had planted tomatoes in 2008. It was actually a good year for potatoes, but I won't make that mistake twice.
Glad to be of help. Nothing worse than cutting into a perfectly good-looking potato and finding blackheart! It's weird though how it doesn't seem to bother red-skin potatoes.