The Story of Potato

Solanum tuberosum: the edible part is a tuber — a modified stem — not a swollen root. Green tubers can carry toxic solanine; UC pages say discard them.

How it was found

Kew maps Solanum tuberosum from western and southern South America to northwestern Venezuela. Native list: Argentina Northwest and South, Bolivia, Chile Central, North and South, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Venezuela. Introduced into parts of Europe, Asia, Africa, and North America. USDA GRIN: widely cultivated; landraces listed for the Canary Islands, India, Mexico, Central America, Venezuela, Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. UC Marin / Tahoe UCCE / Placer-Nevada MG: native to the Andes of South America.

Tahoe Basin UCCE MG: cultivation by indigenous peoples goes back perhaps 10,000 years; European “discovery” first recorded in 1536 by conquistadores who found tubers in markets throughout the Incan Empire. Placer/Nevada UCCE MG: a native of the Andes, carried by Spaniards into Europe during the 16th century. Kew maps its native range in South America.

How people used it

Kew lists food (also animal food). Placer/Nevada MG: one of the world’s main food crops; edible portion is a tuber (modified stem); major source of starch, amino acids, protein, vitamin C, and B vitamins. Tahoe UCCE MG: chuño freeze-dried potato storage used by Andean peoples since before 1000 AD.

Kew lists medicine and poison uses. UC Marin MG: discard green potatoes, which contain a high level of toxic alkaloid solanine; exclude light in storage to prevent greening. Yolo UCCE Savvy Sage and El Dorado Master Food Preservers print the same safety point (solanine / glycoalkaloids).

Timeline

1. Perhaps 10,000 years / before 1000 AD (Andean)

   Andes, chuño

   Tahoe Basin UCCE MG: potatoes native to South America’s Andes; cultivation by indigenous peoples perhaps 10,000 years; chuño freeze-drying used by Andean peoples since before 1000 AD. Kew’s map is the Andes too. The freeze-dried store is how a highland tuber became year-round food.

   Tahoe Basin UCCE MG — Potatoes workshop

2. 1536 / 16th century

   Into Europe with the Spaniards

   Tahoe UCCE MG: European “discovery” first recorded in 1536 by conquistadores in Incan Empire markets. Placer/Nevada MG: Spaniards carried the potato into Europe during the 16th century.

   Tahoe UCCE MG; UCCE Placer/Nevada

3. 17th century (Ireland)

   Ireland’s major food crop

   Placer/Nevada UCCE MG: a century after the 16th-century introduction to Europe, the potato had become the major food crop in Ireland. Tahoe UCCE MG: Basque fishermen and/or secondary English introductions (Raleigh or Drake working for Raleigh) possibly brought it to Ireland.

   UCCE Placer/Nevada; Tahoe UCCE MG

4. 1621 / 1719 (English colonies)

   Bermuda boxes, then New Hampshire

   Tahoe Basin UCCE MG: first reports in the English colonies were a few boxes sent from the Governor of Bermuda to the Governor of Virginia in 1621; first potato crops planted in New Hampshire in 1719.

   Tahoe Basin UCCE MG

5. 1753

   Named in Species Plantarum

   Kew accepts Solanum tuberosum L., first published in Sp. Pl.: 185 (1753). USDA GRIN: Sp. pl. 1:185. 1753.

   Kew POWO; USDA GRIN

6. 1845–1849 (mid-1800s)

   Late blight, famine

   Tahoe UCCE MG: 1845–49 (52) the vast majority of the Irish potato crop failed; the cause was late blight, Phytophthora infestans; about 1 million starved and 2 million migrated by 1855. Placer/Nevada MG: fungal disease caused the Irish potato famine in the mid-1800s.

   Tahoe UCCE MG; UCCE Placer/Nevada

Cool to know

Growing notes for this plant live on the Plant Wiki.