The Best Blight Resistant Potatoes
How to avoid blight? By growing blight-resistant Potatoes.
Is that really a thing?
"Blight Resistant Potatoes - is that really a thing?" I hear you ask.
The dreaded blight. Every grower's worst nightmare. Even if you are new to growing potatoes, you will have no doubt heard about blight. Stories of entire crops being decimated abound, but with a little planning, you can reduce the risk of this happening to you by growing some of the best blight-resistant potatoes.
Potato and tomato blight (late blight) is a disease caused by a fungus-like organism that spreads rapidly in the foliage and tubers or fruit of potatoes and tomatoes in wet weather, causing collapse and decay.

Some summers are worse than others and it is most common in wet weather. While we can’t control the good old British Weather, we can control what we plant. No variety is completely blight-proof, however modern potato varieties are bred to be more blight resistant and independent trials prove this. We have the official results on a tab on each of our variety pages. You can also read about our own trials here.
Here are some of our best blight-resistant potatoes.
If you buy all five of our recommendations you can get £1 off each net. This offer applies to any variety and so don’t worry if you don’t like our recommendations. The following list is just some suggestions for you and not a definite list.
If you are growing these recommendations, we’d love to hear how you get on. Leave a comment on our Facebook page.
Five of our Blight Resistant Seed Potatoes
Give yourself the best chance against blight
A blue blight resistant potato Blue Anneliese
Blue Annelise
Blue Anneliese is the newest addition to our Speciality range. It produces long shaped, blue skin and blue flesh tubers. Slightly creamy flavour with a nutty aroma.
The Best Blight Resistant Potatoes – Gatsby
Gatsby
It is a cross between Saxon and Valor with high resistance to dry rot and powdery scab. Gatsby has long oval tubers with white skin and cream flesh. It produces a high yield of tubers and it is an ideal baking variety.
Coloured varities can also be blight resistant – Heidi Red
Heidi Red
German Speciality variety with medium blight resistance. The Heidi Red (Heiderot) potato produces long shaped tubers with bright red skin and flesh. Heiderot is characterised by a red meat colour and a slightly buttery, delicious potato taste. It is ideal for salads, mash and boiled potatoes.
Another great blight resistant Potato – Sarpo Mira
Sarpo Mira
Renowned by many for its resistance to late blight and even blight recovery, this red skinned tuber is oval in shape with pale flesh. High yielding and long storage capacity makes this both a grower and cooker favourite. The original Sarpo and still the most widely known.
The Best Blight Resistant Potatoes – Vitabella
Vitabella
Vitabella is high blight resistance variety with long harvest window and excellent storage capability. It produces great flavoured light yellow oval tubers, with yellow flesh. Perfect for boiling and chipping.
How to avoid blight? By growing Early Potatoes!
Blight generally occurs later in the summer and another way to avoid this is to grow “early” potatoes. The term “early” refers to the length of time for the crop to mature. If you plant some earlies in March or April then they will be ready to harvest in around 10-12 weeks and hopefully before the blight arrives.
Don't be put off!
The main thing to note is that if you like a variety with low blight resistance, go for it! Experimentation is what growing your own vegetables is all about. Blight usually travels from the leaves to the tubers and so if spotted early enough, you can still harvest your potatoes by removing the leaves as soon as you see any signs of blight. Depending on when they were planted there should be something there. The yield and the individual tubers will be smaller but still delicious!
This list is just some suggestions for you. However, you can browse all the earlies and our entire blight resistant varieties. We have lots of information to help you chose which potato to grow, as well as a great FAQ on how to grow potatoes. We are here to help at any time with your potato questions.