Hi Jayne, there are no simple
Hi Jayne, there are no simple answers to your question – it’s probably best to look at what other people are learning on those different practices, but it may also be worth looking at the consultancy and advice section on the Organic Research Centre website….

MOTHER NATURE SAY …THANKS!!!

Response to Laurence Berman’s comment on behalf of Chloe…
Dear Laurence

Thanks for your interest and your question! It’s important to be strategic about ‘letting things be’, or you’re right, weeds can take over. This is the idea of ‘little hammers’ – you want a management strategy that does affect dock, but that doesn’t take down all the other plant diversity alongside it. For example, mowing or grazing at certain times or frequencies, or changing fertilisation strategies, can impact dock more than other plants. Then when the other plants re-grow first they will help to further suppress dock through competition. The dock management guides from Agricology and the Organic Research Centre (see below) have some practical ideas could help to achieve this. If you’re not organic, spot-spraying could also be a good way to apply this principle.

However, it’s really important to pair control with tactics that prevent future opportunities for problematic weeds. Docks and thistles for example establish in bare ground, so avoid overgrazing and poaching, and vehicle traffic in wet conditions. The idea is that you knock your problematic weeds back a bit each year (with little hammers) while also reducing the opportunities for them to re-establish (through reducing resource availability). If you can, find ways to promote the growth of plants you do want. Over time this should shift your meadow to a condition where it can resist the spread of taproot weeds without much intervention – some continued management to keep it in this state will be of course be required, but intensive control for specific weeds should not be needed. You can consider it a success when you still have occasional docks around, but they are not spreading.

If another problematic weed has become more common while you’ve focused your efforts on dock, this would be a call to diversify your management. Diversification helps to prevent any particular species that likes a particular management regime from getting out of hand (e.g. mow or graze different parts of the meadow at different times in different years).

Hope that helps!
Chloe

Dutch farmers and breeders are not gambling
When varieties with only a single major resistance gene would be grown on a large scale without any kind of protection nor surveillance, only then the Dutch breeders and farmers would be gambling away those precious resistance genes. However, that is not the case.
Once again, the famous Dutch polder model is applied here as well, so together the stakeholders identified threats and possible solutions. With that, we use the current resistant varieties with a single gene untill the next series of varieties with two or more major genes is available. Breeders are working hard on that. Meanwhile the organic growers continue to scout their potato crops as if it where a susceptible variety, defoliating immediately when a suspicious plant is spotted. Non-organic growers are advised to spray these varieties some 3-4 times per season, just to be sure.
With that, we are consciously safeguarding these new resistant varieties and the resistance genes incorporated, ensuring those genes are still effective when stacked with more resistance genes into the next series of varieties.
So, to wrap it up, no the Dutch are not gambling away valuable resistance genes, no the Dutch are not sitting on their hands untill that next series is available, but yes, the Dutch are leading the way in shifting potato production away from ancient super-susceptible varieties and paving the way for new varieties carrying one or more resistance genes. That is not irresponsible, surely sensible and maybe even remarkable.