The potato is a starchy Starch or amylum is a polysaccharide carbohydrate consisting of a large number of glucose units joined together by glycosidic bonds. Starch is produced by all green plants as an energy store and is a major food source for humans, tuberous Tubers are various types of modified plant structures that are enlarged to store nutrients. They are used by plants to overwinter and regrow the next year and as a means of asexual reproduction. Two different groups of tubers are: stem tubers, and root tubers crop A crop is the annual or season's yield of any plant that is grown in significant quantities to be harvested as food, as livestock fodder, fuel, or for any other economic purpose. This category includes crop species as well as agricultural techniques related to cropping from the perennial A perennial plant or perennial is a plant that lives for more than two years. When used by gardeners or horticulturalists, this term applies specifically to perennial herbaceous plants. Scientifically, woody plants like shrubs and trees are also perennial in their habit Solanum Solanum, the nightshades, horsenettles and relatives, is a large and diverse genus of annual and perennial plants. They grow as forbs, vines, sub-shrubs, shrubs, and small trees, and often have attractive fruit and flowers. Many formerly independent genera like Lycopersicon or Cyphomandra are included in Solanum as subgenera or sections today tuberosum of the Solanaceae The Solanaceae is a family of flowering plants that contains a number of important agricultural plants as well as many toxic plants. The name of the family comes from the Latin Solanum "the nightshade plant", but the further etymology of that word is unclear. Most likely, the name comes from the perceived resemblance that some of the family (also known as the nightshades). The word potato may refer to the plant itself as well. In the region of the Andes The Andes are the world's longest exposed mountain range. They lie as a continuous chain of highland along the western coast of South America. The range is over 7,000 km long, 200 km (120 mi) to 700 km (430 mi) wide (widest between 18° to 20°S latitude), and of an average height of about 4,000 m (13,000 ft), there are some other closely related cultivated potato species. Potatoes are the world's fourth largest food crop, following rice Rice is the seed of the monocot plant Oryza sativa, of the grass family . As a cereal grain, it is the most important staple food for a large part of the world's human population, especially in tropical Latin America, the West Indies, East, South and Southeast Asia. It is the grain with the second highest worldwide production, after maize (", wheat Wheat is a worldwide cultivated grass from the Fertile Crescent region of the Near East. In 2007 world production of wheat was 607 million tons, making it the third most-produced cereal after maize (784 million tons) and rice (651 million tons). Wheat grain is a staple food used to make flour for leavened, flat and steamed breads; biscuits,, and maize Maize , is a cereal grain domesticated in Mesoamerica and subsequently spread throughout the American continents. After European contact with the Americas in the late 15th and early 16th centuries, maize spread to the rest of the world.[1]
Wild potato species occur from the United States to Uruguay Uruguay, officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay , is a country located in the southeastern part of South America. It is home to 3.46 million people, of whom 1.7 million live in the capital Montevideo and its metropolitan area. An estimated 80-88% of the population are of mostly European and/or mixed descent and Peru.[2] Genetic testing of the wide variety of cultivars A cultivar is a cultivated plant that has been selected and given a unique name because of desired characteristics; it is usually distinct from similar plants and when propagated it retains those characteristics and wild species suggest that the potato has a single origin in the area of southern Peru Peru , officially the Republic of Peru (Spanish: República del Perú, pronounced [reˈpuβlika ðel peˈɾu] ( listen)), is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean,[3] from a species in the Solanum brevicaule complex. Although Peru is essentially the birthplace of the potato, today over 99% of all cultivated potatoes worldwide are descendants of a subspecies indigenous to south-central Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far south. It is one of two countries in South America.[4] Based on historical records, local agriculturalists, and DNA Deoxyribonucleic acid is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms and some viruses. The main role of DNA molecules is the long-term storage of information. DNA is often compared to a set of blueprints or a recipe, or a code, since it contains the instructions needed analyses, the most widely cultivated variety worldwide, Solanum tuberosum ssp. tuberosum, is believed to be indigenous to the Chiloé Archipelago Chiloé Archipelago consists of several islands lying off the coast of Chile. It is separed from mainland Chile by Chacao Channel in the north, the Chilotan Sea en the east and Gulf of Corcovado to the southeast. All of the archipelago except Desertores Islands that are part of Palena Province forms the Chiloé Province. The main island is Chiloé where it was cultivated as long as 10,000 years ago.[5][6]
The potato was introduced to Europe Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian Sea, and by the Caucasus Mountains, the Kuma-Manych Depression, and the Black Sea to the southeast. Europe is washed in 1536,[7] and subsequently by European mariners to territories and ports throughout the world.[8] Thousands of varieties persist in the Andes, where over 100 varieties might be found in a single valley, and a dozen or more might be maintained by a single agricultural household.[9] Once established in Europe, the potato soon became an important food staple and field crop. But lack of genetic diversity, due to the fact that very few varieties were initially introduced, left the crop vulnerable to disease. In 1845, a plant disease known as late blight, caused by the fungus-like oomycete Oomycota also known as Water molds are a group of filamentous, unicellular heterokonts, physically resembling fungi. They are microscopic, absorptive organisms that reproduce both sexually and asexually and are composed of mycelia, or a tube-like vegetative body (all of an organism's mycelia are called its thallus) Phytophthora infestans Phytophthora infestans is an oomycete or water mold that causes the serious potato disease known as late blight or potato blight. . It was a major culprit in the 1845 Irish and 1846 Highland potato famines. The organism can also infect tomatoes and some other members of the Solanaceae, spread rapidly through the poorer communities of western Ireland Ireland (pronounced /ˈaɪrlənd/ , locally [ˈaɾlənd]; Irish: Éire, pronounced [ˈeːɾʲə] ( listen); Ulster Scots: Airlann, Latin: Hibernia) is the third-largest island in Europe, and the twentieth-largest island in the world. It lies to the north-west of continental Europe and is surrounded by hundreds of islands and islets. To the east of, resulting in the crop failures that led to the Great Irish Famine The Great Famine was a period of starvation, disease and mass emigration between 1845 and 1852 during which the population of Ireland was reduced by 20 to 25 percent. Approximately one million of the population died and a million more emigrated from Ireland's shores. The proximate cause of famine was a potato disease commonly known as potato. The potato was the first vegetable inherited by the early Australians, the Aborigines. China now leads the largest potato crops seen throughout the world.[7]
The annual diet of an average global citizen in the first decade of the twenty-first century would include about 33 kilograms (or 73 lbs.) of potato. However, the local importance of potato is extremely variable and rapidly changing. The potato remains an essential crop in Europe (especially eastern and central Europe), where per capita production is still the highest in the world, but the most rapid expansion of potato over the past few decades has occurred in southern and eastern Asia. China is now the world's largest potato producing country, and nearly a third of the world's potatoes are harvested in China and India.[10] More generally, the geographic shift of potato production has been away from wealthier countries toward lower-income areas of the world, although the degree of this trend is ambiguous.[11]
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The Bay City Times - MLive.com
This year Brenda Kraska, an organic gardner from the Linwood area gave me her recipe for Old Fashioned Potato Salad. Note from Brenda: This North Witch uses ...
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Our Best Never Fail Sweet Potato Pie
sailu
Wed, 19 Aug 2009 13:22:02 GM
Potato. stir fry in all its variations never disappoints. I am especially enamored by this particular stir fry (I could eat it every day and still never get enough). A second helping is always a must with this stir fry. ...
