Lost Crops of the Incas Little-Known Plants of the Andes with Promise for Worldwide Cultivation (1989) / Chapter Skim
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Potatoes
Potatoes
Pages 92-103
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From page 93... ...
Many have appealing culinary qualities and could fill specialty niches in the huge worldwide potato industry. For example, they can be less watery than common potatoes or have nutlike tastes and crisp textures.
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From page 94... ...
Most have deep eyes and irregular shapes that make them harder to process and handle in bulk than regular potatoes. Also, many, if not most, have strict daylength requirements and currently yield poorly in temperate zones because they need short days to induce tuberization.
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From page 95... ...
It is fried and sold as a culinary specialty in the streets of Lima, Peru, for 5 Thought to be the original progenitor, from which all other cultivated potatoes sprang. It is extremely close to such wild species as Solanum leptophyes and S
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From page 96... ...
that are the basis of a tasty yellow soup that is a traditional Peruvian food and an important part of the noon meal in many Andean countries. The plant is a diploid and is closely related to pitiquina, of which it may be just a variant or subspecies.
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From page 97... ...
l~e and handling of the commercial harvest. This diploid plant probably arose from Solanum stenotomum when ancient peoples selected it for its short dormancy.
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From page 98... ...
Of all Andean potatoes, this species shows the greatest diversity, with 2,500 distinct native varieties. It is a tetraploid, believed to have sprung from Solanum stenotomum through chromosome doubling or by hybridization with another wild species, Solanum sparsipilum.
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From page 99... ...
Subsistence farmers still grow it in small plots as an "insurance" crop, in case the andigena potato crop should fail owing to unpredictable heavy frost. The tubers have high contents of dry matter and vitamin C, and they store well.
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From page 100... ...
For some of the world's poorest populations, they increase farming options and reduce the risk of disastrous crop failure, especially that caused by frost. Given increased research attention, it seems probable that these lesser-known potatoes will be greatly improved and will find farmers eager to grow them.
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From page 101... ...
These particular wild potatoes are unsuitable as food crops, but already researchers are beginning to breed them with the common potato to give it glandular hairs with which to ensnare its insect enemies. The photomicrograph reveals an aphid that has become stuck to the leaf of Solanum berthaultii.
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From page 102... ...
In the United States, specialty vegetables are becoming a driving force in the multibillion dollar produce industry, and commercial interest in unusual potatoes is rising. Golden and purple potatoes are already selling at premium prices, and demand for more striking variants is probably endless.
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From page 103... ...
Chilean potatoes are almost certainly also derived from andigena, but for centuries they have been adapted to long-day production. Whichever method transformed andigena, it was one of the most valuable genetic developments of all time; it gave the world what is now its fourth largest food crop: the modern potato.
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