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While at allotment yesterday I harvested a single shye of potatoes which were ample for my Sunday dinner.Or so I thought.

They were Desiree, looked fine and were a decent size. To my dismay after peeling them when I cut into them some of the centres were mushy? They weren't discoloured and you wouldn't realise they were mushy until you touched them? I have never had this problem with any spuds before and hope the rest aren't similarly infected.
I haven't googled it yet but just wondered if others had had this problem before?

It sounds familiarly disappointing. Think I've bought spuds like that too.

Can I just say these were grown from certified seed potatoes.

I’ve grown Desiree before never had any problems like that, was there any brown marking in the centre, could they have got a touch of blight ?

Can't see anything on these links - https://ahdb.org.uk/knowledge-library/po...tification and https://ahdb.org.uk/knowledge-library/po...tification - to suggest it's disease. Could be they absorbed too much water during a really wet spell or some other weird weather effect?

(22-08-2021, 11:02 PM)Can the Man Wrote: [ -> ]I’ve grown Desiree before never had any problems like that, was there any brown marking in the centre, could they have got a touch of blight ?

No brown marks internally, in fact you wouldn't realise they were mush inside unless you touched the area. Basically made them unusable.

(22-08-2021, 11:04 PM)toomanytommytoes Wrote: [ -> ]Can't see anything on these links - https://ahdb.org.uk/knowledge-library/po...tification and https://ahdb.org.uk/knowledge-library/po...tification - to suggest it's disease. Could be they absorbed too much water during a really wet spell or some other weird weather effect?

I think you may be right. I have checked sites for potato defects and can't find any similar. Just hope this was a one off plant! 

If the tubers were large, I would think it very likely to be caused by a dry spell after wet weather and related to hollow heart. The only other thing in my 'Vegetable Expert' book is soft rot where affected tubers soon become slimy and putrid but is an infection it says of damaged tubers.

With hollow heart, I generally am able to removed the offending centre and still end up with a reasonable amount of usable potato. Obviously the way to avoid it would be to water them in any dry spell, particularly when the plants are growing vigorously.