This has happened twice now, but only with one of my 22 potato plants. It's a healthy looking plant, with thick stems, but one stem fell over and when I tried to straighten it, it came off into my hand.
That was a couple weeks ago. Tonight, another stem had fallen over. I tried to right it, and although it's still attached, at the soil line it seems to have withered.
The only difference between this and the other potato plants is that I hilled this with a pure compost/manure mixture straight out of the bag. The others I hilled with yard dirt, bagged garden soil, and compost/manure mix all mixed together.
Compost too rich for the potato? Too acidic?
Potato stem failing
Did the potato stem that fell over look wilted? Did the part of the stem where it detached look as though it had been strangled?
I don't remember it looking wilted. It just had fallen over instead of growing upright like all the others.
Diatomaceous earth time?
This message was edited Aug 18, 2006 10:14 PM
Perhaps the vine was just too heavy to grow upright? Do the plants in the compost appear to have larger vines?
I've tied my potato vines up to grow them vertically. I lost a third of them to verticillium wilt this year, but in that event, the plant sort of wilts overnight.