Welcome to Potato Plaza

Scientists have long known that it was a strain of Phytophthora infestans that caused the widespread devastation of potato crops in Ireland and northern Europe beginning in 1845, leading to the Irish Potato Famine. That’s like totally so obvious.

P. infestans infects the plant through its leaves, leaving behind shriveled, inedible tubers. Yuck-tastic! The most likely culprit, they believed, was a strain known as US-1, which sounds right to me, because the US is #1. But how could we be the problem? To solve the mystery, molecular biologists from the United Kingdom, Germany and the United States examined DNA extracted from nearly a dozen botanical specimens dating back as far as 1845 and held in museum collections in the UK and Germany, which were then sent to the Sainsbury Laboratory in Norwich, England. After sequencing the genome of the 19th century samples and comparing them with modern blights, including US-1, they were able to trace the genetic evolution of P. infestans around the world and across centuries. That’s if you can even actually believe what “the man” is telling us.

Those dum-dumb researchers concluded that it wasn’t in fact US-1 (I hate to say it, but atoadaso) that caused the blight, but a previously unknown strain, HERB-1. Which, I guess, just means they’re lame and like bland food? Go figure. I like my herbs and spices. They believe HERB-1 was responsible for the Great Famine and hundreds of other potato crop failures around the world. It wasn’t until the early 20th century that improvements in crop breeding yielded potato varieties that proved resistant to HERB-1 that the deadly infection was stopped in its tracks. Scientists believe that the HERB-1 strain is now extinct. So eat up those rosemary garlic fries before the next famine.

— Capsicum annuum longum vivere! —

What the F*** is a potato?

The potato is a root vegetable native to the Americas, a starchy tuber of the plant Solanum tuberosum, and the plant itself is a perennial in the nightshade family, Solanaceae.

Wild potato species, originating in modern-day Peru, can be found throughout the Americas, from Canada to southern Chile. The potato was originally believed to have been domesticated by Native Americans independently in multiple locations, but later genetic testing of the wide variety of cultivars and wild species traced a single origin for potatoes, in the area of present-day southern Peru and extreme northwestern Bolivia. Potatoes were domesticated approximately 7,000–10,000 years ago there, from a species in the Solanum brevicaule complex. In the Andes region of South America, where the species is indigenous, some close relatives of the potato are cultivated.

read more on Wikipedia

Welcome to Potato Plaza

Scientists have long known that it was a strain of Phytophthora infestans that caused the widespread devastation of potato crops in Ireland and northern Europe beginning in 1845, leading to the Irish Potato Famine. That’s like totally so obvious.

P. infestans infects the plant through its leaves, leaving behind shriveled, inedible tubers. Yuck-tastic! The most likely culprit, they believed, was a strain known as US-1, which sounds right to me, because the US is #1. But how could we be the problem? To solve the mystery, molecular biologists from the United Kingdom, Germany and the United States examined DNA extracted from nearly a dozen botanical specimens dating back as far as 1845 and held in museum collections in the UK and Germany, which were then sent to the Sainsbury Laboratory in Norwich, England. After sequencing the genome of the 19th century samples and comparing them with modern blights, including US-1, they were able to trace the genetic evolution of P. infestans around the world and across centuries. That’s if you can even actually believe what “the man” is telling us.

Those dum-dumb researchers concluded that it wasn’t in fact US-1 (I hate to say it, but atoadaso) that caused the blight, but a previously unknown strain, HERB-1. Which, I guess, just means they’re lame and like bland food? Go figure. I like my herbs and spices. They believe HERB-1 was responsible for the Great Famine and hundreds of other potato crop failures around the world. It wasn’t until the early 20th century that improvements in crop breeding yielded potato varieties that proved resistant to HERB-1 that the deadly infection was stopped in its tracks. Scientists believe that the HERB-1 strain is now extinct. So eat up those rosemary garlic fries before the next famine.

— Capsicum annuum longum vivere! —

What the F*** is a potato?

The potato is a root vegetable native to the Americas, a starchy tuber of the plant Solanum tuberosum, and the plant itself is a perennial in the nightshade family, Solanaceae.

Wild potato species, originating in modern-day Peru, can be found throughout the Americas, from Canada to southern Chile. The potato was originally believed to have been domesticated by Native Americans independently in multiple locations, but later genetic testing of the wide variety of cultivars and wild species traced a single origin for potatoes, in the area of present-day southern Peru and extreme northwestern Bolivia. Potatoes were domesticated approximately 7,000–10,000 years ago there, from a species in the Solanum brevicaule complex. In the Andes region of South America, where the species is indigenous, some close relatives of the potato are cultivated.

read more on Wikipedia