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Some varieties (but by no means all) of slugs will feed on potatoes and cause sufficient damage to make the potatoes totally inedible.
Nowadays in the UK, slug pellets containing metaldehyde (the only really effective slug killer) are banned because of the damage they cause to wildlife (hedgehogs etc.). As far as damage to the potato tubers themselves by slugs, this is almost exclusively caused by the smaller slugs which exist below the soil surface.
This means that the banned type of slug pellets always were useless at preventing damage to potatoes. It also means that alternative types of slug pellets still available are also useless at preventing damage to potatoes. The slugs live underground and the pellets stay on the soil surface!
The primary method which can be used to avoid slug damage to potatoes is to grow First Early varieties. These will be ready for harvest before slugs have a chance to cause any major damage. First Early potato varieties we have reviewed in detail are given below.
Your second course of action is to choose to grow Second Early or Maincrop varieties which show good resistance to slug damage. Varieties we would recommend include Kestrel, King Edward and Sarpo Axona.
Many other methods of avoiding slug damage are proposed on website pages and forums but, when tested, are shown to be very ineffective.
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