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Old May 29, 2019   #20
brownrexx
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Join Date: Feb 2016
Location: Southeastern PA
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The scab organism is already in the soil and the chicken manure just encourages it to grow, kind of like giving it fertilizer. The scab does not come with the manure, the chicken manure raises the soil pH which provides perfect growing conditions for scab.

I struggled with this for years until I figured out that certain potato varieties (red ones) are more susceptible to it and now I grow my potatoes in straw so that the developing tubers are not actually in the scab bearing soil. I have had excellent potatoes with only a few having scab since I started doing this.

BTW, the scab is not harmful, just really ugly, so if you only have a few potatoes with scab, it can be peeled off and the potato is perfectly safe to eat.
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