BGuthrie Photos: DC -- U.S. Botanic Garden -- Exhibit: Spuds Unearthed

DC -- U.S. Botanic Garden -- Exhibit: Spuds Unearthed:

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Description of Pictures: “Spuds Unearthed!” Exhibit Digs Up History of the Potato
Posted by Jennifer Martin, National Institute of Food and Agriculture, on October 4, 2010 at 9:27 AM
Jean Ristaino of North Carolina State University used USDA funds to sequence late blight disease, pictured, responsible for the Irish potato famine. Her research is leading to new ways to combat the disease.
Jean Ristaino of North Carolina State University used USDA funds to sequence late blight disease, pictured, responsible for the Irish potato famine. Her research is leading to new ways to combat the disease.
The potato is the world’s fourth largest food crop and is the largest vegetable crop in the United States. The crop originated in the Andes Mountains in South America, and in the ensuing 7,000 years, has spread across the globe. Potatoes have played an important role in saving populations of people around the world from starvation. However, the potato has had a tumultuous history, suffering from late blight disease, which caused the Irish potato famine and a severe outbreak in 2009 in the United States.
Despite all this, the 7,000 varieties of potatoes have made their mark on agriculture as well as many cultures throughout the world. With funding from USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture, Jean Ristaino, professor of plant pathology at North Carolina State University, contributed to the Spuds Unearthed! exhibit at the U.S. Botanic Garden in Washington, D.C., which focuses on the history of the potato, its diversity and its mark on pop culture. A whole genome sequence of the pathogen that causes late blight disease also resulted from the funded project. That sequence provided the basic knowledge that has enabled Ristaino and her colleagues to develop new methods of combating this challenging disease. Ristaino’s display, “CSI Dublin: The Hunt for the Irish Potato Killer,” details her research on identifying the strain of P. infestans that caused the Irish potato famine.
She is continuing her research with scientists from Cornell University and the University of California to study the strain of the pathogen that caused the 2009 late blight disease outbreak. The team hopes to begin nationwide tracking of the pathogen and develop a more stable resistance to the disease.
And she’s not done with museums yet, the group hopes to take their exhibit on a national science museum road tour and educate the public about the importance of potatoes and the role plant pathology and genomics research plays in improving global food security. In the meantime, you can visit Spuds Unearthed! in the East Gallery of the Botanic Garden through October 11.
The above from http://blogs.usda.gov/2010/10/04/%E2%80%9Cspuds-unearthed%E2%80%9D-exhibit-digs-up-history-of-the-potato/

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Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. BOTPOT_101011_022.JPG: Knobby, cute and friendly, the potato even looks a little like us -- check out is eyes and eyebrows, its wide range of skin color. It also has a top and a bottom, a back and a front, as we do. And it's 75% water. Just like us. Before there was Mr. Potato Head, there were potatoes that resembled heads, and children who noticed. The poorest of kids could make a potato pal, and by adding sticks for legs, a pet. In 1950, American inventor and designer George Lerner (1922-1995) created the small facial features and body parts designed to be pushed into a potato. By 1952, Mr. Potato Head was the first toy featured in a television commercial on television. That year, about 1 million kits were sold.
2. BOTPOT_101011_026.JPG: Q. Did you hear about the lazy kangaroo? A. He was a Pouch Potato. Children have always recognized in the potato a pal. You can juggle it, print with it, toss it, carve it, dress it, make puppets from it, even wear it. People laugh at potato jokes, write and sing potato songs. They dance to potato music and tell tater tales, draw spudly cartoons and watch the best of tuber talent on screen. We talk taters all the time: An issue is a "hot potato," a slouch is called a "Couch Potato," something trivial is "small potatoes." Potato palindrome: "Sit on a potato pan, Otis." "One potato, two potato, three potato, four..." The Couch Potato phenomenon -- it was started by people at the University of California, Davis -- spurred sales of games, dolls, and other spudabilia. It also spawned a backlash effort from potato fans who resisted its depiction as lazy, fattening, and weak.
3. BOTPOT_101011_047.JPG: Idaho E-Z picker belt with black and white mounted photo of E-Z picker in use.
4. BOTPOT_101011_065.JPG: Potatoes Around the World: Processing and marketing frozen French fries around the world ... Creating and marketing Mr. Potato Head... Potato chips? ... Prince Edward Island, the Potato Island... "Do the Mashed Potato," the Couch Potato phenomenon. Who's responsible? North Americans. Potatoes reached the Jamestown colony in Virginia in 1621, but they were not widely planted in the United States or Canada until the early 1700s. Did President Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) serve real French fries at the White House as many have claimed? Menu Notes from the President's House says: " ... potatoes, raw, in small slices, deep-fried." "Small slices" do not French fries make, do they? Sixty percent of the US potato crop is processed into frozen products. Canada is the second only to the Netherlands as French fry exporter to the world -- over 55% of its potato harvest. Though the potato was brought to Egypt in the 1800s, it didn't take off until World War I when it was needed to feed troops there. Today, Egypt grows more potatoes than any other African country, relying on irrigation water supplied from the Nile Delta. Cassava and plantains are more widespread, but in Rwanda potatoes are quickly becoming a food security "insurance" crop. Their word for potato? "That which comes from Europe." South Africans compete worldwide in seed potato production, and, like other industrialized countries, put major emphasis on growing potatoes -- 250,000 tons a year -- for processing into French fries and potato chips. Like their Andean counterparts, Kenyan women grow most of the country's potatoes, on small farms, establishing the spud as a staple right after another American native, corn or maize. English exporter Captain James Cook gave potatoes and vegetable seeds to Maori chiefs in New Zealand as early as 1769. He brought the potato to Australia a year later. Familiar with the sweet potato, by 1807 the Maori were skilled potato farmers, trading spuds for other goods. They developed their own cultivars, which they gave traditional Maori names. Potatoes are Australia's major food crop, accounting for almost half of all vegetables grown.
5. BOTPOT_101011_066.JPG: In a northern clime like Norway, you can munch potato flatbread as you sip potato aquavit, a distilled liquor, and plan to eat boiled potatoes every day. Since 1807, the Lysholm family in Trondheim wanted to sell their wares abroad. Five casks of aquavit were placed on board a ship sailing to an East Indian port. The casks did not sell. When the ship returned to Norway, the distillery owners sampled the casks' contents, wondering if they had been ruined on the long sea voyage. But no! The drink was even more flavorful that before. Pass the raggmunk, or potato pancakes, and serve them up with lingonberries. When in Helsinki, buy your taters straight from the boat. Fames Russian botanist Nikolai Ivanovich Vavilov (1887-1943) recognized early on how crucial biodiversity was to maintaining healthy agricultural practices. He gathered thousands of seed potato examples from around the world in order to preserve them. During the siege of Leningrad in World War II, when millions were dying of hunger, a Vavilov associate even died to protect the tubers. Vavilov himself became an "enemy of the state" under Stalin and died in prison in 1943. Poland's King John III Sobieska apparently brought tubers from Vienna to his country in the mid-17th century. Half the potatoes grown in Poland -- and Poland is in the top 10 of producers -- go to feed animals. In fact, this connection likely contributed to the downfall of Communism in Poland. Late blight hit the potato crop in Poland hard in 1988 and the nation's pigs had little to eat. They were slaughtered, the meat sold abroad, and soon Poland experienced a meat shortage. Workers went on strike against the government, and Communist power began to erode. Portuguese ships brought potatoes to India at the close of the 16th century. Indian farmers embraced the new crop. Today the spud is a highly valued cash crop, ranking India third in the world of potato producers. In Nepal, whose high-altitude climate resembles that of the potato's Andean origins, farmers do better with spuds than rice, selling healthy seed potatoes to farmers in Nepal's other regions. Hokkaido Prefecture, a mountainous area in northern Japan, is the heart of the country's potato production. Introduced by the Dutch in the early 17th century, the spud is especially favored in the form of potato chips.
6. BOTPOT_101011_082.JPG: Why the Potato? When you take a potato in your hand, you are holding the world's most important vegetable; potatoes produce more pounds of protein per acre than wheat, corn, rice or oats. The potato is grown in over 140 countries, from the desert to the Arctic Circle, and in all 50 United States. The International Potato Center in Lima, Peru, safeguards 7,000 potato varieties, of which 2,300 are wild, in its gene bank. (Wild potatoes carry traits useful against drought, disease, and invasive insects.) Potato genetic material also is preserved at the International Seed Bank in Norway, and in the National Center for Genetic Resources Preservation in Colorado. Has celery, for all its crisp, watery charm, changed world history? The potato on the other hand: * Sustained armies of Inca foot soldiers who controlled the Inca empire's thousands of miles along the Pacific Coast from 1438-1533. * Enabled high-mountain habitation in Switzerland, Australia, Italy, Nepal, and Bhutan. * Fueled and exploited the workers who made possible the Industrial Revolution in Britain in the 1700s. Thanks to the potato, fewer babies died of malnutrition, but larger families meant young people had to leave farms to find work in the cities. * Fed civilians and soldiers alike in wartime, its nutritious tubers protected from harm underground. Germany prolonged World War I by keeping its trench soldiers fed with potatoes. * Supported the Chinese and Japanese during recurring rice shortages in the 18th century. * Caused mass migration of more than 1 million Irish to North America and Australia when late blight disease destroyed the only variety they planted. The Irish Potato Famine (1845-1852) is known as the Great Hunger in Ireland. It spread illness, starvation, and death among the one-third of the Irish whose nutrition depended on the potato. * The pioneering potato even has been grown well beyond Earth, on the Space Shuttle Columbia.
7. BOTPOT_101011_095.JPG: The Well-Traveled Potato: Stories from Potato History: Wherever you go, you're on Planet Potato, at least for the past 500 years or so. From its origins in the Andes mountains, the potato had traveled farther than any vegetable, around the globe and to the outskirts of the Moon. It has inserted deep roots in places where people think it has always been. That's why many call it the "Irish potato," or the Idaho spud. The wild potato was domesticated about 8,000 years ago by the highland people of what is now Peru and Bolivia. Carried out of the Americas for the first time by the Spanish in the 1530s, the potato was first grown in Spain's Canary Islands, 70 miles off Africa's coast. From there the tuber slowly moved across Europe, and then was carried to the rest of the world. And out into space -- A food that is easy to grow, prepare and eat, the tasty tuber is key to feeding astronauts on long flights. Space Station and Shuttle astronauts typically eat meals containing less-than-enticing potatoes, often in cans.
8. BOTPOT_101011_102.JPG: The Well-Traveled Potato: Stories from Potato History By 1600, agriculturist Olivier de Serres (1539-1619), famed as the first person to suggest crop rotation, devoted an entire chapter to the potato in his "Theatre d'agriculture st mesnage des champs". De Serres reported that the potato arrived in France from Switzerland. As the potato began to establish itself in northern Europe in the 18th century, many promoters of the curious vegetable stepped forward to persuade the masses that the potato had many virtues. One of the most colorful and important was French army physicist Antoine-Augustin Parmentier (1737-1813) who became convinced of the potato's power as a prisoner of war in Prussia during the Seven Years War (1756-1763), surviving on potatoes -- a food scorned by the French. On his return home, he invited King Louis XVI and other guests to an all-potato meal, possibly suggested by Benjamin Franklin, America's ambassador to France. A showman and master of public relations, Parmentier enticed his countrymen into eating potatoes by giving exotic potato flowers to the royals -- Queen Marie Antoinette even poked potato flowers in her wig. And -- by posting guards around the potato patch provided by the King only by day, he lured curious locals into checking out the tuber's undoubted value by night. By the mid-1800s, potato fields dominated northern France, and Potage Parmentier, a potato-based soup, was part of the language.
9. BOTPOT_101011_106.JPG: The Well-Traveled Potato: Stories from Potato History Fish 'n' chips? Bangers 'n' mash? The inhabitants of Great Britain, a cool, moist place ideally suited for growing the spud, are among the world's biggest potato fans. They call fries "chips" and chips "crisps," as is their right. Potatoes to feed British troops trapped in the trenches of France and Belgium during the Great War, World War I (1914-18), were in short supply. By World War II, the British public was again growing its own spuds, and using them in place of ingredients needed for the war effort.
10. BOTPOT_101011_109.JPG: The Well-Traveled Potato: Stories from Potato History The first potatoes grown in Span were small, a tropical plant still adjusting to a new environment. Planted in the garden of La Sangre Hospital in Seville in 1573, much as medicinal herbs, potatoes were served to the patients -- evidencing growing interest in potatoes as nutritious for people. King Philip II of Spain, puffed up with pride over the potato brought from his overseas colonies, gave samples to Pope Pius IV in 1565. Calling the tuber "tartufo" after the familiar truffle, the name caught on and echoes in such words as neighboring Germany's "kartoffel". The tenacious tuber became extremely popular in what is present-day Netherlands and Belgium, a positive result of Spain's dominance there. As elsewhere, though at first a toy of the elite, the filling potato became a staple of the poorest people, such as the Belgian miners painted by Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890) in "The Potato Eaters" (1885). US soldiers posted in southern Belgium during World War I (1914-1918) bought "frites" from French-speaking Belgians, and dubbed them "Frenchy fries." The Dutch, too, love their "frieten," but only half of the Netherlands' crop is grown for food. The Netherlands is the world leader in certified seed potatoes, exporting 700,000 tons in 2007, and 30 percent of its crop is made into starch.
11. BOTPOT_101011_113.JPG: Blight: Home to the healthiest potato-fed workers in Europe for over 200 years, Ireland symbolized both the good and bad of potato reliance. Surrounded by sea, the Irish were known to outsiders as "wreckers," people who removed goods from shipwrecks. In fact, the potato may have first reached Ireland in 1588 in crashed Spanish Armada ships. By 1845, over 1.5 million of Ireland's nearly 9 million people depended on the potato. For another 3 million, the potato was their staple food. Tenant farmers boiled their suds in iron pots over peat fires, sieved them through rough baskets, and then ate them hot from the sieve. The wealthy also elevated their potatoes -- in porcelain bowls -- on engraved silver rings. When the fungus Phytophthora Infestans settled into the first potato field, the poor suffered first. Overnight, healthy green plants withered, turned black and died. Even the tubers underground quickly rotted and blackened -- and so did potatoes stored away for the winter. From 1845-1852, over 1 million people died, and 1.5 million people emigrated. And yes, late blight is still with us.
12. BOTPOT_101011_125.JPG: The Tuber Travels the Pond to Europe: The value of the underground treasure that is the potato exceeds $100 billion a year, far more than all the gold and silver Spanish explorers plundered from colonial South America in the 1500s. Disdained by the Spanish as a good of uncivilized natives, it was considered far inferior to wheat and bread. It probably arrived in Spain around 1570, and from there, found its way around the world -- and to North America. During the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries, the height of its empire, Spain controlled much of the Americas, the Low Countries, parts of Italy, Germany, and France as well as pockets in Africa, the Philippines, and outlying islands. Though often transported globally by the Dutch, the English and the Portuguese, among others, the potato's spread in many ways mirrored that of Spain's imperial reach. In 1588, the world's first scientific botanist, Carolus Clusius (1526-1609), commissioned the earliest known portrait of a potato plant -- evidence of the potato's existence in Europe. Thirteen years later, in his milestone "Rariorum plantarum historia" (Antwerp, 1601), he reported that potatoes were common in northern Italy, used to feed both humans and animals. Clusius' work piqued interest in the potato, which had already turned up in Germany, Austria, France as well as the Low Countries. Swiss botanist Gasper Bauhin gave the potato its botanical name, Solarium tuberosum, in his "Phytopinax" (1596). Bauhin's claims that potatoes were aphrodisiacs, and caused leprosy and gas may have impeded the potato's acceptance among the masses. In 1597, English botanist John Gerard (1545-1612) published an early detailed description and portrait of the potato in his "Herball or Generall History of Plantes". It's likely he knew the plant well from growing it himself. Gerard, who also portrayed himself holding a sprig of potato flowers, stated mistakenly that the potato originated in Virginia, causing centuries of confusion about its origins.
13. BOTPOT_101011_129.JPG: "Potatoes are now considered as a high-valued crop and a vegetable in China. Demand for potatoes has been growing when other bulk commodities, such as rice and wheat, have seen demand declining." -- Professor Jikun Huang, Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy China first received the potato in the mid-17th century and is now the world's number-one producer and consumer of potatoes. Consumption has gone up by more than 40% over the past five years, compared with a 2.45% global rate. The days of growing potatoes only to trade for rice and to feed the family's pigs are long gone, other than in remote villages. The latest technology delivers spuds headed to processing facilities for frozen fries. And the Chinese eat more than 90,000 tons of them, 70% imported. China is expected to gobble 20% more potatoes in the next five years, in large part due to the growth of fast-food restaurants.
14. BOTPOT_101011_132.JPG: "The destructive Colorado Beetle may lurk in your vegetable garden ... keep a sharp look-out for beetles with American accents." -- Punch Magazine, April 14, 1937 An American native likely originating in the US southwest and Mexico, the Colorado Potato Beetle (Leptinotarsa decemlineata) dined happily on the leaves of the buffalo burr, a weedy Solanum, for generations. In the 1850s, it first encountered cultivated potatoes planted by early settlers. It ate its way quickly eastward, sneaking on ships, and following its new favorite food. By the 1870s, it was moving through Europe's potato fields, making major inroads during both world wars.
15. BOTPOT_101011_135.JPG: Its eradication has obsessed potato growers ever since. Both the UK and Ireland, among a handful of countries, have kept the beetle out, by imposing vigorous quarantines.
16. BOTPOT_101011_137.JPG: Of the more than 5,000 potato varieties available, only a handful are offered to US consumers in local supermarkets. Europeans typically divide the potato into types -- those for salads, soups, mashing, boiling ,frying, baking, and so on. And in the Andes, there is a potato for every taste, every dish, and every meal. If you buy seed potatoes from an organic seed house for your own garden in North America, you easily could plant and sample over 65 varieties.
17. BOTPOT_101011_154.JPG: Potato Tech: In the 1800s, while exploring the potato's industrial potential, Leighton & Son invented a potato-derived glue perfect for use in cloth bookbinding. To this day, potato-starch derivatives are used in making coated papers, glues, food additives, cosmetics, and pharmaceuticals as well as degradable plastics. The Dutch have been leaders in potato-starch products since the 1950s. In 1907, French brothers Auguste and Louis Lumiere perfected and launched a method of color photography that made use of potato starch crystals on glass plates. Its soft, mellow colors were the standard for color photography into the 1930s. In 1983, while suggesting ideas to his daughter for a science fair project, auto repairman William A. Borst invented the potato clock powered by a two-potato battery.
18. BOTPOT_101011_155.JPG: For many years, every Belgian town had its frites vendors, often working from small trailers or wagons. But in the late 1970s, sanitation and other issues put an end to most of them. But you can still buy the world's best freshly cut, twice-fried potatoes in Belgium at small shops and in cafes and restaurants. Their secret? Fry once at a moderate temperature, then drain and cool down. Then back in the hot oil at a higher heat for just a flash to seal the potatoes and shut and give the outside that crispy feel. Served up in a traditional paper cone or cornet, frites come with your choice of sauce -- mayonnaise, curry sauce, sauce Americaine and more.
19. BOTPOT_101011_164.JPG: The High-Tech Potato: Breeding potatoes for superior traits is challenging. Among the last of the major food crops to be studied, the potato is now revealing itself, as genetic and genomic research opens new avenues for developing new varieties. The Breeder's Challenge: The most efficient way to produce potatoes with desirable qualities is to work with individual genes, the actual "instructions" for producing a trail. In the laboratory, genes can be identified and transferred from one variety or species to another. There are more than 5,000 varieties of potatoes (Solanum) worldwide belonging to 7 or 8 species. Wild potatoes have many attractive qualities such as disease resistance and enhanced nutrition, but they also have a different number of chromosomes than commercial potatoes, which makes it difficult for them to interbreed. Bringing a valuable trait into the commercial potato requires a new approach: scientists are turning to genetic engineering. Scientists have cloned a gene from a wild, 24-chromosome potato resistant to late-blight disease. This gene has been inserted into a 48-chromosome commercial variety, and the altered plants have proved to be resistant to the disease. These "engineered" plants can now be used as a parent to more easily breed resistance into other commercial potato varieties. The Potato Genome Project: Scientists in the Potato Genome Project -- more than 75 scientists in 14 laboratories around the world -- are working to decipher the genetic instructions that produce a potato plant -- to map the potato genome. Two different potato varieties are being studied. What they learn will help produce potatoes that yield more, are more resistant to pests, disease and drought, and have longer storage life, among other characteristics. The Potato Genome: How do you make a potato? A genome is an organism's set of chromosomes and the genes found within them. DNA that makes up chromosomes directs how the organism will be built and function. The DNA is actually a language whose alphabet has only four letters (A, C, G, and T). The words they make are the genes, and genes determine all traits, from the color of the potato's skin to its resistance to disease. How to "Read" a Genome: Whether potato, dog, human, or any other form of life, the techniques for reading a genome are the same. Step 1: Isolate the DNA from the cells and then fragment the chromosomes into short segments. Step 2: A machine subjects the fragments to chemical reactions. Each reaction yields a reading of A, C, T, or G. Step 3: Computers "read" the chemical reactions one by one and record the results as a sequence of letters. By comparing the sequences, computers can stitch together the fragments, and ultimately reconstruct the chromosomes. Taken together, the chromosome sequences for the potato genome. It takes millions of sequences to build even just one chromosome. Mapping the genome was not possible before high-speed computer technology. Making sense of the gene sequence: Scientists are only beginning to understand what the language means. That is, what traits are produced by which genetic "words"? It is a huge puzzle that will take years to finish. As each piece is figured out, we form a more complete picture of how potato genes are organized and function. Getting to Know the Potato: The Potato Genome Project has revealed that potato genes are very similar to those of its cousin, the tomato. Despite dramatic differences in the plants, the genes are found in nearly the same position on the respective chromosomes. Why one produces an edible fruit and the other an edible starchy tuber is a mystery that is just now being studied.
20. BOTPOT_101011_167.JPG: High-Altitude Origins: The most famous, popular and influential vegetable in the world, the potato is an American original. First domesticated in the Andean highlands of present-day Peru more than 8,000 years ago, the potato (Solanum tuberosum) has been nurtured by generations of native farmers. In indigenous Andes communities, it is largely women who preserve the native varieties. For generations they have identified, selected and maintained varieties suited to differing Andean micro-climates. These practices have ensured the potato's diversity and very survival -- and supported food security for the Andean people.
21. BOTPOT_101011_174.JPG: CSI Dublin: The Hunt for the Irish Potato Killer
22. BOTPOT_101011_178.JPG: The Victims: The victims died slowly and painfully, as their bodies wasted away. Weak and malnourished, they were easy prey for diseases like typhus, cholera, and dysentery. They were found in cottages, ditches, and fields, surrounded by blackened vines and the fetid odor of rotting potatoes. These were the working poor of Ireland. One remorseless killer took the lives of almost a million of them. One killer preyed on their primary food source, turning their crops into a black, inedible mush. For more than 150 years, the exact name of their killer remained unknown, until a North Carolina researcher used DNA evidence to identify once and for all the perpetrator of the Irish Potato Famine.
23. BOTPOT_101011_181.JPG: The Crime Scene
24. BOTPOT_101011_183.JPG: We know it as the Irish Potato Famine because potatoes were the first victims. The disease began in 1843 in North America. By 1845, the plague had crossed the ocean and begun devastating potato crops in Europe. It started as blotches on the leaves, then spread to the stems and finally belowground, rotting the flesh of the potato. With rain and cool weather, the pathogen spread faster; entire crops died within days. Though other crops were grown in Ireland in the 19th century, the working poor relied on potatoes as their primary food source. * An adult male consumed 9 to 11 pounds of potatoes a day, * Potatoes grew in poor soil and require less labor than other crops. * Potatoes had been grown in Ireland for over 200 years, yet remained untouchable by the disease until the summer of 1845.
25. BOTPOT_101011_186.JPG: Entire crops of potatoes died within days of infection. What kind of killer could work so quickly?
26. BOTPOT_101011_189.JPG: Death of the potatoes meant death to the Irish. The resulting potato famine had lasting effects, taking the lives of an estimated one million Irish. Over 2 million emigrated from Ireland to Europe and America on "coffin ships," hoping to escape the killer. Today more than 40 million Americans can claim Irish descent.
27. BOTPOT_101011_192.JPG: Victims grew malnourished, unable to work or pay their rent. Many were evicted by absent or cruel landlords, left to forage or beg for food and shelter.
28. BOTPOT_101011_194.JPG: The Suspects: Who was to blame for the millions of dead and fleeing Irish? Some blamed the weather or bad soil. Others said it was punishment from God. At the time, people were unaware that microbes could cause disease. But early scientists soon determined it was a fungus -like organism -- later to be called an "Oomycete" or water mould -- that had infected and killed the potatoes. By 1876, scientists had given the potato killer a name: Phytophthora infestans, aka the "Plant Destroyer." P. Infestans was a pathogen with a criminal past -- it had already ravaged crops in the United States and was making its way through the European continent even as it destroyed crops in Britain and Ireland. But P. infestans was native to none of these continents; it came from more tropical lands.
29. BOTPOT_101011_197.JPG: Nineteenth century scientists believed that the pathogen originated in the Andes of South America, the ancestral home of the potato. In fact, the first potatoes to succumb to the disease on the European continent had been shipped from Peru. Ristaino's lab speculated a Peruvian strain as the source and called it the I(a) "haplotype," referring to a set of closely linked genes that are inherited together and distinguish one member of a species from another. Twentieth century scientists, on the other hand, suggested that the pathogen originated in Mexico, where the P. infestans population was genetically diverse. The Mexican theorists said that the I(b) haplotype was the original strain that caused the potato famine. A debate began: which one was the real Irish potato killer?
30. BOTPOT_101011_201.JPG: The Detective: Dr. Jean Beagle Ristaino was ready to solve the mystery. To identify, once and for all, the real cause of the Irish Potato Famine and the killer of millions, she needed evidence. Unfortunately, the evidence she needed was 161 years old -- talk about a cold case. But it was important. Determining exactly which strain of the pathogen was responsible for the original attack could help prepare for the next. P. infestans is still an active crop destroyer, preying on potatoes, tomatoes, or other plants around the world. If detectives could understand that pathogen down to its DNA, they might be able to develop plants that are resistant to it.
31. BOTPOT_101011_204.JPG: From her lab at North Carolina State University, Ristaino tracked the evidence across the Atlantic Ocean and finally found it: in Dublin and London. In the Royal Botanic Garden archive, she discovered historic herbarium specimens, carefully preserved leaves and tubers from infected potato plants. They dated back to 1846. Using a process called PCR, which detects and amplifies tiny amounts of DNA, Ristaino's research group was able to isolate DNA from the killer. They found the fingerprints of the Irish Potato killer still lingering in the century-old leaves. They then sequenced pieces of the mitochondrial genome of the original killer. Was the mass murdered from Mexico, as proposed? Or were the early 19th century scientists correct and a Peruvian origin supported? A single killer, or a combination? The scientific world was about to be surprised.
32. BOTPOT_101011_205.JPG: The Killer, Identified: As it turns out, all the 19th century samples from Europe, the UK and Ireland were infected with the same strain of P. infestans: the 1(a) MtDNA haplotype. Further research and more DNA evidence from sequence from several genes from modern strains indicated that the pathogen originated in the South American Andes. The oldest mutations in the pathogens' DNA were of South American origin. Modern populations of the pathogen in Ireland and the US share similar DNA sequences with Andean potato blight populations. The case was closed: P infestans'1(a) strain was the real Irish potato killer.
33. BOTPOT_101011_208.JPG: The Peruvian pathogen was responsible for the Irish deaths, and it continues to destroy plants today, because strains have evolved that are resistant to fungicides. Fungicides are heavily used to control this blight on both tomato and potato crops. According to the International Potato Center in Lima, Peru, this disease costs the world's growers more than $3 billion each year in fungicides and other control measures. Though many fungicides can have adverse environmental effects, their use is currently necessary as up to 50% of the world's potato crop could die from P. infestans if fungicides are not used liberally. Understanding the genome of P. infestans may one day lead to potato varieties that are both resistant to P. infestans and acceptable to both the grower and consumer. Improved methods of identification of the pathogen can help farmers improve management decisions.
34. BOTPOT_101011_211.JPG: The Phytophthora Genome Revealed: Researchers from around the US and the globe have joined forces to understand the pathogen and learn what makes the plant destroyer kill. The entire genome of P infestans has been sequenced at the Broad Institute at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge in a collaborative project funded by the USDA and the National Science Foundation. This collaborative work was accomplished by: * Chad Nusbaum, Massachusetts Institute of Technology * Willy Fry, Cornell University * Howard Judelson, University of California Riverside * Sophien Kamoun, Ohio State University * Jean Ristaino, North Carolina State University The genome sequence data has resulted in identification of new genes, comparative studies among related species, and clarified how selection and evolution continue to shape the population of biology of this destructive Oomycete pathogen.
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