Growing Spuds on Mars

Different potato varieties (By Scott Bauer, USDA)

Yours truly has a preference for spuds over rice as the dietary “carb.” So, you may forgive me for being interested in news about this tuber-kind being potentially feeding the future colonists on planet Mars.Surely now, our venerable Canadian Broadcasting Service (CBC) would not lie!

As the report says:

The [potato growing] experiment was conducted in soil in the Atacama Desert in Peru, which is most similar to what is found on Mars.

Clearly, spuds are in and Mars is—give or take a few million miles—just around the corner. Is that a wakeup call for the potato-farmers in Idaho in the U.S. and on Prince Edward Island in Canada? Perhaps, the real question ought to be:

Where do my Spuds come from?

Looking at the website of the “The resource for the global Potato Industry” and the accompanying text of “China is now the biggest potato producer and almost a third of all potatoes is harvested in China and India” may make you think twice about your past assumptions. Even those “rice-aficionados” of the Far East, i.e., China alone is producing four times the amount of spuds grown in the U.S. Together, China, India, Russia, and the Ukraine grow about as much as the rest of the world (Wikipedia).

Imagine that. The small annual’s tubers, first imported to Europe some 400 years ago and, subsequently also to Asia, have now become a major carb-staple of the entire world! The accelerating recognition of the potato as an important staple for the world’s populace may already be gleaned from events and descriptions like the International Year of the Potato (in 2008), the International Potato Center, and the Great Irish Potato Famine around 1850.

Surprising Facts

What is surprising though, at least to me, is that, nowadays, many people appear to be totally unaware of the plant’s origin and its (relatively) recent introduction to the “Old World” (i.e., Europe) and Asia. In simple terms, without Christopher Columbus persuading Isabella I of Castile, Queen of Spain, to sponsor his quest for finding a faster (meaning more profitable) route from Europe to the EAST Indies (but finding the WEST Indies instead) and all the subsequent explorations, discoveries, and so forth, today’s widespread dependence on the potato plant would never have arisen. Of course, their populations and economies most likely would not have developed as they did either; they might still be stuck in the Middle Ages of food production.

As important as the potato tuber is to the modern world, it’s just one of many plant species that have found great “new homes” on other continents to the benefit of people there or in the entire world. For example, another plant from the Americas that was unknown in Europe and Asia and has since become important is corn (in Europe termed maize). In contrast, soybeans that are native to Asia have since become dominant crops in the Americas that now produce 2/3 of the world’s harvest. Among well-known and widely consumed fish species introduced to Europe are rainbow trout (native to the entire continent North America) and carp species (from Asia).

Invasive Species

Of course, not all introduced species are welcome, neither in the Americas nor elsewhere. In fact, the number of introduced species (accidentally or by intent) that caused severe ecological repercussions are probably larger than the desirable ones. The Global Invasive Species Information Network maintains a worldwide list of invasive species (other than microbes) which can be searched by country, species, origin, distribution, and other information.

Interactive maps of the Great Lakes watershed with invasive species distributions are available from the Great Lakes Indian Fish & Wildlife Commission (GLIFWC). It covers predominantly the Michigan and Minnesota area.

Air potato leaf beetle on air potato leaf (By Kghongaku (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons)

Florida has the Center for Aquatic and Invasive Plants at the University of Florida. One of the nuisance invasive plants in that state is the “air potato” (Dioscorea alata), a vine of sorts. Its abundance is actually being held in check by another introduced species, namely the “air potato leaf beetle” (Lilioceris cheni), native to Nepal and China. The beetle is being released in large numbers in the infected areas. A one-page poster claims a 25{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117}-70{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} reduction of the invasive plant since the beetle’s introduction in 2011.

While studies have concluded that the beetle is not going to dine on native plants if and when its favored air potato vine is gone, such biological control attempts can backfire too.

Biological Control

There are some interesting examples of biological control attempts that have gone awry. No doubt, initially they were all quite successful—you might even say too successful. After the target species was annihilated, its control organism was looking for other food sources to survive.

One well-known example is the (intended) introduction of the mongoose to Hawaii. Originally introduced to curtail the (unintended) introduction of rats in sugarcane plantations, it did not just kill the rats but ravaged native mammals, reptiles, birds, fruits, plants, and sea turtle eggs as well. By now it is being considered an undesirable invasive species there.

In short, jumping from the frying pan into the fire may not solve your problem in the long run. But I do like roast potatoes.

Read more at fairfaxfreecitizen.com

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