Potato History

Potato History

Potato Plant Diagram

The potato (Solanum tuberosum) is a perennial plant of the Solanaceae, or nightshade, family, commonly grown for its starchy tuber. Potatoes are the world’s most widely grown tuber crop, and the fourth largest crop in terms of fresh produce (after rice, wheat, and maize), but this ranking is inflated due to the high water content of fresh potatoes relative to that of other crops. The potato originated in the Andes, in the area of present-day countries such as Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, and Venezuela. Pre-Columbian inhabitants of the Andean cultures cultivated around 200 different kinds of potatoes.

The potato has only a very distant relationship with the sweet potato, which is more closely related to the carrot. In areas of the United States where sweet potatoes grow commonly, people sometimes refer to the “Irish Potato” to distinguish the two, a reference to the source of potato’s introduction into the British North American colonies.

Archaeological evidence suggests that humans have cultivated the potato for at least 7,000 years. Recent genetic analysis has shown that the potato was cultivated from one progenitor in an area of Southern Peru, and the cultivated species then spread from there. Pre-Columbian societies of this region (pre-cursors of the Inca civilization) cultivated it originally, and it spread over time to other Native American groups and became a staple food in some areas.

The first mention of potatoes in North America comes in an account of Scots-Irish settlers in Londonderry, New Hampshire during 1719. Potatoes were used for food and as animal feed. The first potatoes planted in Idaho were in 1836 but it was not until after the developer by Luther Burbank of the Russet potato that potatoes became a major Idaho crop, at the beginning of the 20th century. While potatoes are grown commercially in at least 35 states, most poatoes are grown in Northern, cooler states.

Source: Wikipedia