PSI Bulletin: February 2026
- 6 days ago
- 7 min read
No. 02/26 SUBSCRIBER EDITION
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Dear Subscriber,
Welcome to your February edition of Synopsis, your monthly storage bulletin from Potato Storage Insight.
PSI ACTIVITY
This month, PSI has been working specifically to bring together our plans with Simon Faulkner at SDF Agriculture for our third joint strategic Potato Storage Day, that will be held on Wednesday 20th May.
Trade stands are now available to book: 3m x 3m indoor stands and larger outside stands are available. Email Simon Faulkner (simon.faulkner99@outlook.com) or Adrian Cunnington (adrian@potatostorageinsight.com) to book your spot.
Also coming up in the next few weeks is the latest PSI Potato Store Managers' Course at Greetham Valley Hotel.
The course is fully booked so we are looking forward to a good, interactive exchange with trainees on 11/12 March. Delegates will also benefit from the exciting addition of Tim Kitson (right) as a third presenter on the programme, alongside Adrian Cunnington and Glyn Harper. Tim is coming along to contribute to the day 2 sessions on practical store management and storage for processing.
BEST PRACTICE
This time of year, as we move towards spring, is often the time when a few surprises make themselves known in storage so it is important to make sure you undertake a really thorough inspection of crops to identify any issues and, if necessary, put a management plan in place to deal with it.
Sprouting
The season has been a pretty active one in terms of sprouting activity and there are plenty of reports of additional treatments being required to check unwanted growth.
This is cause for a little more concern if adding a sprout control treatment to a store wasn’t intended as part of the overall storage plan.
However, all of the available contact action products can be used providing the label requirements for dosage, treatment and harvest intervals are adhered to. These products would include spearmint oil (Biox-M), orange oil (Argos) and DMN (1,4 Sight).
Do bear in mind that the products are not approved for use on seed.
Diseases
We have recently seen samples from cold storage which, rather surprisingly for what was a generally a warm harvest period, were exhibiting symptoms of gangrene.
Gangrene is a wound pathogen so the highest risk of infection will result from ‘at harvest’ damage which was not adequately cured. Cool, late harvested crops being added to cold storage that is already down to holding temperature pose the highest risk.
Dry rot
Less surprisingly, there are several reports of dry rot problems in store.
Warm harvest temperatures and early storage when temperature reduction was difficult will have encouraged infection.
Characterised by the familiar ‘wrinkled’ lesion around a point of damage and often accompanied by coloured fungal spore growth (potentially white, yellow, pink or blue depending on the causal organism), the dry rot often develops quite slowly but becomes increasingly prone to secondary infection by bacteria. If the latter occurs, the disease can quickly change pace unless temperatures are reduced and any wet rot can be rapidly dried.
Skin spot
Skin spot is a blemish that can suddenly come to light at this time of year. Because it is a latent infection, there are no visible tuber symptoms at harvest but if a crop is infected skin spot lesions can be seen on washed samples as pimple-like spots on the skin. The disease is encouraged by inadequate curing and low temperatures.
TECHNICAL INSIGHT
Important considerations about the atmosphere of a potato store
Oxygen
Potatoes are living organisms, so they need oxygen to metabolise their food reserves to stay alive. Respiration rates are usually higher in processing stores compared with pre-pack stores due to their higher holding temperatures although, at times during the storage period, respiration rates may increase if the holding temperature falls below 5°C.
A lack of oxygen in a potato store can lead to internal defects such as blackheart (right), where the central core of the potato is starved of oxygen and the tuber effectively suffocates from the inside out. The result is a necrotic, odourless, blackened area in the central pith tissue. However, susceptibility to blackheart is a complex issue with multiple causes related to tuber stress, so it cannot be linked solely to oxygen levels in most cases.
Carbon dioxide
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