The potato pathogen has even been rumoured to be involved with certain cases of dwarfism...
Pathogen genome tracks Irish potato famine back to its roots
The rise and fall of the Phytophthora infestans lineage that triggered the Irish potato famine(PDF)
If someone wants to start The Old Sod ping list, you can put me on it. My ancestors had to dead with "An Gorta Mór — the Great Hunger in the Irish language."
I question that statement. Of course the population has recovered -- they just live outside of Ireland. My great grandfather left 13 children when he died and countless descendants in subsequent years.
Herb just wanted to be a dentist.
I blame George Bush
ScienceShot: Invasive Ladybug Carries Fatal Parasite
Pregnancy test helped to bring frog-killing fungus to the US (chytridiomycosis)
FReepmail me if you want on or off my combined microbiology/immunology ping list.
The Irish have come a long way from the potato.
Now the capital of Ireland is Boston and they eat baked beans.
Last I heard, Tax-chick was running an Ireland list.
Probably not a good idea then to bring a plant which is native to the higher elevations of the Andes, and which is highly susceptible to fungi, to an island where it rains nearly every day and then become 100% dependent upon it as a foodstuff.
This event is what brought the Irish part of my ancestry to this continent.
How much Irish migration was due to the potato famine, and how much was due to British brutality? My great-grandparents, who left Ireland in the 1880’s, said they left because of British oppression. In those days, the British shot Irish for any reason whatever, including being caught worshiping at Mass. They also stole very freely from the Irish.
Tuber or not tuber.
Phytophthora infestans, AKA Late Blight.
I usually grow my tomatoes and potatoes in my back yard.
Last year, both were going gangbusters - but when the weather really got nice and warm, my WHOLE tomato crop was wiped out. Plants were literally falling over and practically dying overnight.
It was Late Blight.
I must have had a good strain of potatoes, because they were unaffected!
This year I decided to separate my Solanum species, most of the tomatoes got moved to a different spot.
My warning to other gardeners is if you see even the slightest signs of it, either destroy the affected plants, or take a fungicidal approach. A baking soda solution or potassium bicarbonate solution does a good job, but you have to get it before it starts spreading!
I think even IF the potato famine did not occur, there would have been a huge exodus of people from Ireland anyway because the British rule made it nearly impossible for the Irish to economically advance. They probably would have left about the same time many Eastern European Jews left for the USA. Indeed, economic opportunity and the effect of several major wars in Europe between 1600 and 1900 drive a huge number Europeans to what was first the American colonies, then the USA.
Ping.
The famine was due to politics.
The one thing that always puzzled me was why did the Irish starve when they are on an island surrounded by a sea full of fish?
Ironically, the Irish population was so large at the time, the English actually were concerned that *any* disaster in Ireland could result in a vast and disastrous flood of Irish refugees to England.
So about the time the potato disease was attacking crops on the continent, but before it had moved to Ireland, a parliamentary committee decided that steps should be taken to ease passage of the Irish to America, and anywhere other than England.
At the time, the Irish population was over 8 million, with an estimated 1 million dying of disease and famine, and another 1 million migrating to other countries. A census right after the famine revealed 6.5 million, which reveals that population continued to increase *during* the famine, (explained biologically because starvation actually increases fertility.)
But after the famine, the population continued to decline, to about 4.4 million in 1911. Today the Irish population is about 4.8 million.
Importantly, how the disease struck was important, because the potato crop was still being harvested, but the potatoes were stored in pits, and it was during this storage the disease would rapidly spread through the potatoes, turning them into an inedible black pulp.
Ireland ping!
The potato pathogen has even been rumoured to be involved with certain cases of dwarfism...
“An international team of scientists reveals that a unique strain of potato blight they call HERB-1 triggered the Irish potato famine of the mid-nineteenth century.”
That’s a half truth that compromises the full truth of what caused the FAMINE.
What the scientists actually found was what caused the disease known as potatoe blight that destroyed so much of the potatoe crop in Ireland.
However, British imperial politics, not the potatoe blight set the course by which the growing of potatoes dominated Irish agriculture to such an extent that failure of that one crop meant famine for Ireland, where 1/3 of the population was entirely dependent on the potatoe for food and many more were dependent on potatoe farming for income, for Ireland and for export to Britain and her empire.
The famine story is also a story of how concentrated and abusive power in any form leads to a tragedy waiting to happen.
Had Ireland been charting it’s own course, Ireland would have experienced the potatoe blight as most of Europe did at the time, but like most of Europe most of Ireland would have not experienced the famine. Like other parts of Europe Irelands agriculture would have been more diverse.
I’m sure Monsanto can make great use of this! ... I wonder why only natural seeds are being stored in that Norwegian mountain vault?