Late Potato Blight

[RedRuth]

I've had a blight warning from the Syngenta forecast I'm signed up to, I cut the foliage off my maincrop taters last week and planned on leaving them 2 weeks before getting them out of the ground. My understanding is that the foliage is the main point of infection with spores being washed down into the soil and infecting tubers. So my question is, would you dig the taters up now or is the risk of infection negligible enough to leave it another week? I don't really have time this weekend unless it's essential.
I'm growing on an allotment site so there's almost certainly blight present.

[Ger-annie-um]

We signed up to the same service. We had blight alerts from mid July but no sign of blight on the spud haulms until early August. We cut the haulms right back on the 11th August and lifted the spuds on the 25th, very relieved that there was no sign of blight on the potatoes. Maybe an idea to dig a couple just to reassure yourself all is well.

[RedRuth]

We signed up to the same service. We had blight alerts from mid July but no sign of blight on the spud haulms until early August. We cut the haulms right back on the 11th August and lifted the spuds on the 25th, very relieved that there was no sign of blight on the potatoes. Maybe an idea to dig a couple just to reassure yourself all is well.

That's reassuring, I'm digging some up tomorrow to cook Sunday dinner for my Mum (main reason I don't have time to get the whole crop up!) so hopefully I'll get an idea how they are. I haven't lost taters to blight since 2012 but they went so fast it was heart breaking and the smell

[ameno]

Definitely wait. Potatoes underground are unlikely to get infected just from airborne spores coming from elsewhere. By far the most likely vector is from spores shed from the plants directly up above. If you wait 2 weeks, any spores shed onto the soil surface should be dead, so the potatoes won't get infected as you dig them up.

[greenishfing]

We waited 15 days after cutting off the haulms of ours despite my husband's prophesies of doom. 99% of the potatoes were fine. I keep checking them and they're still fine.