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In the early 1800s, a strain of potato blight (Phytophthora infestans) known as HERB-1 began to spread in the Americas, especially Central and North America, destroying many crops. The blight spread to Europe in the 1840s where, because of an extreme lack of genetic diversity, the potato crops were even more susceptible.
The potato (/ p ə ˈ t eɪ t oʊ /) is a starchy tuberous vegetable native to the Americas that is consumed as a staple food in many parts of the world. Potatoes are underground tubers of the plant Solanum tuberosum, a perennial in the nightshade family Solanaceae. Wild potato species can be found from the southern United States to southern Chile.
Because of the new trading resulting from the Columbian exchange, several plants native to the Americas spread around the world, including potatoes, maize, tomatoes, and tobacco. [11] Before 1500, potatoes were not grown outside of South America.
The European potato failure was a food crisis caused by potato blight that struck Northern and Western Europe in the mid-1840s. The time is also known as the Hungry Forties . While the crisis produced excess mortality and suffering across the affected areas, particularly affected were the Scottish Highlands , with the Highland Potato Famine and ...
Although domesticated rye (Secale cereale) occurs in the final Epi-Palaeolithic strata at Tell Abu Hureyra (the earliest instance of a domesticated plant species), it was insignificant in the Neolithic Period of southwest Asia and only became common with the spread of farming into northern Europe several millennia later.
Potato (Solanum tuberosum) 4. Vanilla (Vanilla planifolia) 5. Pará rubber tree (Hevea brasiliensis) 6. Cacao (Theobroma cacao) 7. Tobacco (Nicotiana rustica) New World crops are those crops, food and otherwise, that are native to the New World (mostly the Americas) and were not found in the Old World before 1492 AD.
Maize, potatoes, sweet potatoes and manioc were the key crops that spread from the New World to the Old, while varieties of wheat, barley, rice and turnips traveled from the Old World to the New. There had been few livestock species in the New World, with horses, cattle, sheep and goats being completely unknown before their arrival with Old ...
The potato spread successfully in part due to the lessons learned after Great Famine of Ireland in which biologists and farmers created methods to prevent fungus induced blight. The second point, protecting genetic health, is especially important since such a large part of the global population is dependent on the potato for a stable diet.