The potato /pteto/ is a starchy root vegetable native to the Americas that is consumed as a staple food in many parts of the world.[2] Potatoes are tubers of the plant Solanum tuberosum, a perennial in the nightshade family Solanaceae.[3]

The Spanish introduced potatoes to Europe in the second half of the 16th century. They are a staple food in many parts of the world and an integral part of much of the world's food supply. Following millennia of selective breeding, there are now over 5,000 different types of potatoes.[7] Over 99% of potatoes presently cultivated worldwide descend from varieties that originated in the lowlands of south-central Chile.[9] The importance of the potato as a food source and culinary ingredient varies by region and is still changing. It remains an essential crop in Europe, especially Northern and Eastern Europe, where per capita production is still the highest in the world, while the most rapid expansion in production during the 21st century was in southern and eastern Asia, with China and India leading the world production of 376 million tonnes (370,000,000 long tons; 414,000,000 short tons) as of 2021.


Hot Potato Software Download


Download Zip 🔥 https://tinurll.com/2y4yu4 🔥



Like the tomato, the potato is a nightshade in the genus Solanum, and the vegetative and fruiting parts of the potato contain the toxin solanine which is dangerous for human consumption. Normal potato tubers that have been grown and stored properly produce glycoalkaloids in negligible amounts, but, if green sections of the plant (namely sprouts and skins) are exposed to light, the tuber can accumulate a high enough concentration of glycoalkaloids to affect human health.[10]

The English word "potato" comes from Spanish patata (the name used in Spain). The Royal Spanish Academy says the Spanish word is a hybrid of the Tano batata (sweet potato) and the Quechua papa (potato).[11][12] The name originally referred to the sweet potato although the two plants are not biologically closely related, despite their similar appearance. The 16th-century English herbalist John Gerard referred to sweet potatoes as "common potatoes", and used the terms "bastard potatoes" and "Virginia potatoes" for the species now known as potato.[13] In many of the chronicles detailing agriculture and plants no distinction is made between the two.[14] Potatoes are occasionally referred to as "Irish potatoes" or "white potatoes" in the United States to distinguish them from sweet potatoes.[13]

Potato plants are herbaceous perennials that grow about 60 centimetres (24 inches) high, depending on variety, with the leaves dying back after flowering, fruiting and tuber formation. They bear white, pink, red, blue, or purple flowers with yellow stamens. Potatoes are mostly cross-pollinated by insects such as bumblebees, which carry pollen from other potato plants, though a substantial amount of self-fertilizing occurs as well. Tubers form in response to decreasing day length, although this tendency has been minimized in commercial varieties.[20]

After flowering, potato plants produce small green fruits that resemble green cherry tomatoes, each containing about 300 seeds. Like all parts of the plant except the tubers, the fruit contain the toxic alkaloid solanine and are therefore unsuitable for consumption. All new potato varieties are grown from seeds, also called "true potato seed", "TPS" or "botanical seed" to distinguish it from seed tubers.[21] New varieties grown from seed can be propagated vegetatively by planting tubers, pieces of tubers cut to include at least one or two eyes, or cuttings, a practice used in greenhouses for the production of healthy seed tubers. Plants propagated from tubers are clones of the parent, whereas those propagated from seed produce a range of different varieties.

Potatoes, both S. tuberosum and most of its wild relatives, are self-incompatible: they bear no useful fruit when self-pollinated. This trait is problematic for crop breeding, as all sexually-produced plants must be hybrids. The gene responsible for its trait as well as mutations to disable it are now known. Self-compatibility has successfully been introduced both to diploid potatoes (including a special line of S. tuberosum) by CRISPR-Cas9.[21] Plants having a 'Sli' gene produce pollen which is compatible to its own parent and plants with similar S genes.[22] This gene was recently cloned by Wageningen University and Solynta in 2021, which would allow for faster and more focused breeding.[21][23]

Diploid hybrid potato breeding is a recent area of potato genetics supported by the finding that simultaneous homozygosity and fixation of donor alleles is possible.[24] Wild potato species useful for breeding may include Solanum desmissum and S. stoloniferum, among others.[25]

The potato was first domesticated in the region of modern-day southern Peru and northwestern Bolivia[6] by pre-Columbian farmers, around Lake Titicaca.[7] It has since spread around the world and become a staple crop in many countries.

The earliest archaeologically verified potato tuber remains have been found at the coastal site of Ancon (central Peru), dating to 2500 BC.[29][30] The most widely cultivated variety, Solanum tuberosum tuberosum, is indigenous to the Chilo Archipelago, and has been cultivated by the local indigenous people since before the Spanish conquest.[31][32]

According to conservative estimates, the introduction of the potato was responsible for a quarter of the growth in Old World population and urbanization between 1700 and 1900.[33] In the Altiplano, potatoes provided the principal energy source for the Inca civilization, its predecessors, and its Spanish successor. Following the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire, the Spanish introduced the potato to Europe in the second half of the 16th century, part of the Columbian exchange. The staple was subsequently conveyed by European (possibly including Russian) mariners to territories and ports throughout the world, especially their colonies.[34] The potato was slow to be adopted by European and colonial farmers, but after 1750 it became an important food staple and field crop[34] and played a major role in the European 19th century population boom.[8] 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 as well as parts of the Scottish Highlands, resulting in the crop failures that led to the Great Irish Famine.[35][34]

The major species grown worldwide is S. tuberosum (a tetraploid with 48 chromosomes), and modern varieties of this species are the most widely cultivated. There are also four diploid species (with 24 chromosomes): S. stenotomum, S. phureja, S. goniocalyx, and S. ajanhuiri. There are two triploid species (with 36 chromosomes): S. chaucha and S. juzepczukii. There is one pentaploid cultivated species (with 60 chromosomes): S. curtilobum. There are two major subspecies of S. tuberosum: andigena, or Andean; and tuberosum, or Chilean.[37] The Andean potato is adapted to the short-day conditions prevalent in the mountainous equatorial and tropical regions where it originated; the Chilean potato, however, native to the Chilo Archipelago, is adapted to the long-day conditions prevalent in the higher latitude region of southern Chile.[31]

The International Potato Center, based in Lima, Peru, holds 4,870 types of potato germplasm, most of which are traditional landrace cultivars.[38] The international Potato Genome Sequencing Consortium announced in 2009 that they had achieved a draft sequence of the potato genome, containing 12 chromosomes and 860 million base pairs, making it a medium-sized plant genome.[39] More than 99% of all current varieties of potatoes currently grown are direct descendants of a subspecies that once grew in the lowlands of south-central Chile.[40] Nonetheless, genetic testing of the wide variety of cultivars and wild species affirms that all potato subspecies derive from a single origin in the area of present-day southern Peru and extreme Northwestern Bolivia (from a species in the S. brevicaule complex).[6][7][8]

Most modern potatoes grown in North America arrived through European settlement and not independently from the South American sources, although at least one wild potato species, S. fendleri, occurs in North America, where it is used in breeding for resistance to a nematode species that attacks cultivated potatoes. A secondary center of genetic variability of the potato is Mexico, where important wild species that have been used extensively in modern breeding are found, such as the hexaploid S. demissum, as a source of resistance to the devastating late blight disease (Phytophthora infestans).[35] Another relative native to this region, Solanum bulbocastanum, has been used to genetically engineer the potato to resist potato blight.[41] Many such wild relatives are useful for breeding resistance to P. infestans.[42]

There are close to 4,000 varieties of potatoes, each of which has specific agricultural or culinary attributes.[44] Around 80 varieties are commercially available in the UK.[45] In general, varieties are categorized into a few main groups based on common characteristics, such as russet potatoes (rough brown skin), red potatoes, white potatoes, yellow potatoes (also called Yukon potatoes) and purple potatoes.

Immature potatoes may be sold fresh from the field as ".mw-parser-output .vanchor>:target~.vanchor-text{background-color:#b1d2ff}creamer" or "new" potatoes and are particularly valued for their taste. They are typically small in size and tender, with a loose skin, and flesh containing a lower level of starch than other potatoes. In the United States they are generally either a Yukon Gold potato or a red potato, called gold creamers or red creamers respectively.[48][49] In the UK, the Jersey Royal is a famous type of new potato.[50] They are distinct from "baby", "salad" or "fingerling" potatoes, which are small and tend to have waxy flesh, but are grown to maturity and can be stored for months before being sold. e24fc04721

the governor season 1 download

movie songs download kannada

mtk droid tools free download for pc

gqom friday mix 2023 mp3 download zamusic

avon let 39;s talk september 2023 pdf download