The potato is a starchy, tuberous crop from the perennial Solanum tuberosum of the Solanaceae family (also known as the nightshades). The word potato may refer to the plant itself as well as the edible tuber. In the region of the Andes, there are some other closely related cultivated potato species. Potatoes were first introduced outside the Andes region four centuries ago, and have become an integral part of much of the world's cuisine. It is the world's fourth-largest food crop, following rice, wheat, and maize. Long-term storage of potatoes requires specialised care in cold warehouses.

Wild potato species occur throughout the Americas, from the United States to Uruguay. The potato was originally believed to have been domesticated independently in multiple locations, but later genetic testing of the wide variety of cultivars and wild species proved a single origin for potatoes in the area of present-day southern Peru and extreme northwestern Bolivia (from a species in the Solanum brevicaule complex), where they were domesticated 7,000–10,000 years ago. Following centuries of selective breeding, there are now over a thousand different types of potatoes. Of these subspecies, a variety that at one point grew in the Chiloé Archipelago (the potato's south-central Chilean sub-center of origin) left its germplasm on over 99% of the cultivated potatoes worldwide.

Following the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire, the Spanish introduced the potato to Europe in the second half of the 16th century. The staple was subsequently conveyed by European mariners to territories and ports throughout the world. The potato was slow to be adopted by distrustful European farmers, but soon enough it became an important food staple and field crop that played a major role in the European 19th century population boom. However, lack of genetic diversity, due to the very limited number of varieties initially introduced, left the crop vulnerable to disease. In 1845, a plant disease known as late blight, caused by the fungus-like oomycete Phytophthora infestans, spread rapidly through the poorer communities of western Ireland, resulting in the crop failures that led to the Great Irish Famine. Thousands of varieties still persist in the Andes however, where over 100 cultivars might be found in a single valley, and a dozen or more might be maintained by a single agricultural household. Besides the need of ensuring proper genetic diversity of a crop, it also underscores the need of depending on several staple crops, and to preferably choose staple crops that are endemic and thus adapted to the local environment.

The annual diet of an average global citizen in the first decade of the 21st century included about 33 kg (73 lb) of potato. However, the local importance of potato is extremely variable and rapidly changing. It 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 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.

Noun

potato (plural potatoes)

1. A plant tuber, Solanum tuberosum, eaten as a starchy vegetable, particularly in the Americas and Europe
2. (informal, UK) A conspicuous hole in a sock or stocking

Synonyms

• (plant): spud (slang)

Spudsy and Potatoes @ Spudsy.com
An informational site about Spudsy and Potatoes. ... http://www.spudsy.com/science/agriculture/field_crops/root_crops/potato/pests_and ... com/skerry_champion ...
www.spudsy.com

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Beans (Pinto Beans, Baked Beans, Kidney Beans, Cooked) @ Spudsy.com
Beans (Cooking, Fermentation, Production, Broad Beans) @ Spudsy.com Beans. ... Science: Agriculture: Field Crops: Legumes Bean - Phaseolus. This includes plants in the botanic ...
www.spudsy.com/beans

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www.spudsy.com
http://www.spudsy.com/science/agriculture/field_crops/root_crops/potato/pests_and ... com/skerry_champion_potato/encyclopedia.htm http://www.spudsy.com/small_potatoes/
www.spudsy.com/urllist.txt

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• Associations (9)
• Pests and Diseases (28)

See also:

• Science: Agriculture: Horticulture: Vegetables (151)
• Science: Biology: Flora and Fauna: Plantae: Magnoliophyta: Magnoliopsida: Solanaceae: Solanum (32)

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• Briefing Room - Potatoes
  ers.usda.gov
  USDA provides an overview of potato production in the US, the background, trade and the market outlook. It also produces a newsletter and recommends certain on-line publications.
• Global Potato News
  potatonews.com
  An online source of potato related information featuring daily potato news updates, a directory of more than 800 links to relevant potato web sites, a globally distributed electronic newsletter containing information about online potato news events and a section for important potato publications.
• The Potato Then and Now
  collections.ic.gc.ca
  Compendium of information on potato growing techniques, potato cultivation in history, and science and technology in potato production.