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COMMENT PAGE FOR:
How Potatoes Evolved
alanvillalobos wrote 22 hours 52 min ago:
> There are around 140 species of wild potato in South America, growing
from Mexico in the north all the way down to Argentina and Chile in the
south.
This one always bothers me. Mexico is in North America.
rishi_devan wrote 20 hours 52 min ago:
Perhaps the word "Latin America" would have been more apt?
tshaddox wrote 19 hours 8 min ago:
I suppose that coincidentally works in this case where they’re
inexplicably omitting the wild potato species in the United States.
I personally would have just gone with “the Americas.”
pstuart wrote 22 hours 49 min ago:
Right below the Gulf of America! /s
WrongOnInternet wrote 1 day ago:
You say tomato, I say potato.
begueradj wrote 1 day ago:
There are more than 4000 varieties of potatoes available in shops
around the world.
yzydserd wrote 1 day ago:
This week’s episode of the BBC podcast The Infinite Monkey Cage was
42 minutes of Science Comedy dedicated to the spud, featuring the same
expert as the OP.
Most interesting fact I learned was the effort going toward making
potato seeds (not seed potatoes).
[1]: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002fxn7
stevekemp wrote 1 day ago:
Off-topic but I have to say that potatoes are incredibly easy to grow,
and doing so is very worthwhile.
I have a small planter on my balcony at the moment which is thriving
with leaves, and in a few weeks I'll dig out the harvest to see what I
got. People grow them in very poor soil, and even in literal bags of
compost, or buckets. They're easy-going and almost trouble-free.
Growing chillis, tomatoes, or herbs on window-sills is kinda fun and
rewarding, but growing a "proper crop" feels even more rewarding. And
surprising because you have to wait until you dig things up to see how
well you did!
nytesky wrote 16 hours 18 min ago:
That’s essentially half the plot of the Martian, they were pretty
“easy” to grow. ;)
steve_adams_86 wrote 1 day ago:
One of the most gratifying things I've done in the garden was grow a
potato tower. The first time I used a variety which doesn't root out
very well from stems, so the results were really disappointing. A few
years later I figured out my mistake and tried with a more suitable
variety, and it was like a vertical potato farm in a 1.5m radius. We
were so excited with how many potatoes came out, haha. I never
expected knocking down a pile of soil and discovering potatoes to be
so exhilarating. Especially after the first run was such a
disappointment
macromaniac wrote 1 day ago:
I threw potatoes into the back part of my yard without burying them
or tending them in any way and they did quiet well. Ended up dying
from a freeze, I think I will throw them more strategically next
time.
benchly wrote 1 day ago:
My wife and I did the same with two planters outside my apartment,
first time trying our hand at container gardening. We are about 10ish
days from harvest and exited to see what happened. If the amount and
health of the leaves are any indication, we should pull a meal or
two's worth out of it for what amounted to very little effort and
care. Fingers crossed!
We tried carrots, but they came out very stunted, even accounting
that they were a smaller variety. The container we used was likely
too shallow.
Does anyone have other vegetable suggestions for us
apartment-dwelling container growers to try? We have a few different
size containers available ranging from about (in inches) 12x12x36 to
24x24x24 and space for more.
emptybits wrote 19 hours 7 min ago:
I second the garlic recommendation here. It is more tolerant to
nutrient and water variability than most crops. Slugs and many
other pests won’t bother it.
If you do give it regular fertilizer and water then you can plant
it extremely densely, seeding just a few inches apart. Great for
apartment dwellers with raised bed or container gardens.
We plant around Halloween and harvest in early July. That leaves
time and space for a late summer crop if you wish.
Also, garlic stores very well. We harvest about 100 bulbs each year
from a small plot, maybe 2-3 sq m., and that gives us garlic for a
year, fresh, cured, minced (into butter or pesto), and for gifts.
And don’t even get me started on how amazing and versatile garlic
scapes are. The scape harvest is its own prized crop!
Added: I’m in Vancouver. Garlic seems to love the overwintering
process here, usually with some light snow.
sowbug wrote 19 hours 22 min ago:
Garlic takes a long time, but it's easy and doesn't take up much
space. It also repels some critters that might otherwise help
themselves to your crops.
SoftTalker wrote 23 hours 51 min ago:
To get long slender carrots like you see at the supermarket I think
you need deep very loose soil. My dad gardened for years and never
had good luck with carrots. Our soil was just too heavy (a lot of
clay) and even with the addition of a lot of sand they always grew
fat and stumpy. He grew them every year regardless.
steve_adams_86 wrote 1 day ago:
The most productive things I grow (temperate/cool climate in
coastal BC) and then actually eat/enjoy:
- Zucchini always grows more than we can use, but they're really
good. I pick them very small (~6") so the plant continues producing
and growing more
- Chard grows year-round and is very resilient and low-maintenance.
It's great in casseroles, soups, sautees, and other cooked formats
- Kale is similar. It'll just keep on giving
- Bush beans are amazing in summer, and if you've got vertical
space, pole beans can be incredible producers too. My 8 foot raised
bed has a single row of pole beans, and I've been harvesting from
them for about 6 weeks with plenty more to come. This single row is
very densely planted, but I feed it heavily and ensure it's fully
exposed to the sun. With enough nutrients and water, you'll get
pounds of beans. Again I pick them relatively small and often
- Nasturtiums make a beautiful flower but the leaves and flowers
are incredible in salads, and their seed pods can be used to make a
really delicious pickle/ferment as well. Throw them in hanging
baskets and use them to make fun salads
- Scallions are a fun one that can be densely planted and only need
6" or so of depth. Bulb onions can be a bit more sensitive and
demanding, but scallions are pretty easy going. I stagger the
plantings throughout spring so I can harvest bunches of them every
few weeks. They never seem to do poorly
I grow lots of other stuff but I don't always eat or enjoy them as
much as these things. One exception is lettuces and other
greens/herbs, but I grow those hydroponically indoors because it
allows for a system that makes timing and harvesting much easier so
I'm more likely to ensure it doesn't go to waste
benchly wrote 22 hours 20 min ago:
I forgot to mention that I tried Kale but as soon as it started
sprouting, the local chipmunks dug it all up, but left the
carrots and potatoes alone. I'll have to build a cage next
season.
Definitely add your other suggestions to the list. We are in
Michigan, US, so harvest is soon, then Winter, so plenty of time
to plan and prep as we learn more about container gardening.
stevekemp wrote 1 day ago:
Exciting times!
I have to say I grew cucumbers for the first time last year, and
they were surprisingly good. Otherwise the only other thing that
comes to mind immediately is Strawberries, which are also tasty and
not so hard to keep up with.
Telemark70 wrote 1 day ago:
Try dwarf French beans.
LarMachinarum wrote 1 day ago:
All with you on the general idea that growing potatoes is easy and
great. That being said, just a detail:
> People grow them in very poor soil, and even in literal bags of
compost
a bag of compost is pretty much the exact opposite of "very poor
soil"; it's about the richest soil there is.
stevekemp wrote 1 day ago:
Indeed, the point there as you don't need a planter. Literally
just a plastic bag of soil bought from a hardware/gardening store.
Of course the "new soil" would be full of nutrients, etc, it was
more that this is possible even if you don't have a garden, or
other hardware. (Similar intent behind mentioning the use of
buckets!)
Llamamoe wrote 1 day ago:
I tried planting ones I've left in storage for too long once, even
buried them a bit underground. The next day the only thing left was
snail trails ):
SideburnsOfDoom wrote 1 day ago:
Where I am it's often not warm and dry enough through summer for
chillies and tomatoes. If there are a few cooler, wetter weeks then
they do poorly.
Potatoes are a bit better in that respect.
But in poor weather conditions, blight can easily set in on the
potatoes and tomatoes. Which makes it a lot less worthwhile.
msuniverse2026 wrote 1 day ago:
I dislike potatoes because they are not trve roots but are instead
tubers. Beetroot and radishes are where the real stuff is happening.
The potato is a vegetable of stupefaction, radishes make you
hyper-intelligent.
metalman wrote 1 day ago:
your comment shows that you are a real foodie, but unfortunately
missunderstood , or rather it was the downvoting that made re read
your comment and go "hey ya!, good one"
amanaplanacanal wrote 1 day ago:
I read it, and I must be eating too many potatoes because I have no
idea what they are on about.
nosioptar wrote 21 hours 21 min ago:
It's all true. How else would Idahoans be so consistently
dimwitted?
metalman wrote 1 day ago:
somewhere, sometime, someone, will perhaps, pull a radish out of
there garden, wipe the dirt off and hand it to you, likely
demonstrating the next step of eating it....which unlike your
first potatoe, you will remember
pm90 wrote 1 day ago:
> There are around 140 species of wild potato in South America, growing
from Mexico in the north all the way down to Argentina and Chile in the
south.
Super nit, but do authors think Mexico is in South America?
kgwgk wrote 1 day ago:
By "in South America" they meant "South of America" :-)
cariaso wrote 1 day ago:
I can easily forgive the statement you highlighted, but there is zero
information about potatoes in this one:
Along with wheat, maize and rice, they are estimated to account for
up to 80% of all calories eaten by people worldwide.
driggs wrote 1 day ago:
The point is that potatoes are one of the top 4 food sources
worldwide, and they collectively dwarf the percentages of the long
tail of other food sources.
Proportions vary significantly continent-to-continent and
culture-to-culture, such that it'd be more meaningless to try and
put a more precise (but less accurate) number on it.
This is not difficult to parse out of the sentence if you choose to
take a charitable rather than a pedantic perspective, which I
recommend to you generally.
foobar1962 wrote 1 day ago:
I picked that up too. Awkward. I think they mean that 80% of all
calories are provided by wheat, maize, rice, and potatoes.
throw310822 wrote 11 hours 24 min ago:
I interpreted it as "they're part of the class of foods that,
depending on the culture, can make up to 80% of the calories of
each meal'.
darth_aardvark wrote 1 day ago:
Yeah, but that statement is basically information-free re:
potatoes.
"Boiled squid liver is a popular food. Along with wheat, maize,
rice, and potatoes, they make up 80% of all calories eaten by
people worldwide."
is technically true, but doesn't tell you anything about boiled
squid liver consumption.
allturtles wrote 1 day ago:
FWIW, the data I found puts potatoes at 1.7% of world calorie
consumption [0], but also puts the sum of
maize+wheat+rice+potatoes at closer to 50% than 80%.
[0]:
[1]: https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/most-important-sta...
searine wrote 1 day ago:
The actual paper in question: [1] Funded by Chinese and US government
agencies and agricultural research programs.
[1]: https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(25)00736-6
teslabox wrote 1 day ago:
Nightshades are problematic for stressed and old people because the
plants have mild poisons. Old people and addicts tend to not be able to
handle the poisons in tomatoes, potatoes, eggplants and chilis.
But for people that are nightshade-tolerant potatoes are an excellent
food crop.
IIRC, someone was annoyed that do-gooders wanted to remove potatoes
from the food stamp programs, because the potato is actually an
almost-complete food. This has morphed into The Potato Diet, which
calls for eating potatoes and only potatoes for a short period of time.
From the start of October through November in 2010,
Voigt consumed only spuds, a few basic seasonings
and small amounts of oil for cooking. His endeavor
drew attention from NBC’s Today Show, CBS News, Fox,
NPR and the UK’s Daily Telegraph.
Voigt documented his journey through a blog
( 20potatoesaday.com ). Tired of potatoes
getting a bad rap as being nothing but fattening
starch and carbs, he wanted to make a statement
that proved potatoes were very nutritious.
-
[1]: https://spudman.com/article/all-potato-diet-eight-years-later-...
ninalanyon wrote 1 day ago:
> do-gooders wanted to remove potatoes from the food stamp programs,
because the potato is actually an almost-complete food.
What on earth?!
dyauspitr wrote 1 day ago:
Why would they want to remove it if it’s an almost complete food?
sowbug wrote 19 hours 20 min ago:
Read the original quote for full context.
CoastalCoder wrote 1 day ago:
I thought one of the issues with potatoes is that they have a really
high glycemic index, not lack of nutrients.
So consistently eating a lot of them increases one's risk of Type 2
diabetes.
alecco wrote 20 hours 24 min ago:
That is misleading. Potatoes are ranked as one of the most
satiating foods per calorie. The problem is people put a lot of
butter/oil on them. Or eat them too processed.
SoftTalker wrote 23 hours 48 min ago:
The Danes (maybe all Scandinavians?) eat potatoes with almost every
meal. Do they have a higher incidence of diabetes?
BSOhealth wrote 1 day ago:
This is true. Most of the potatoes eaten are valuable in
caloric-deprived situations, but they are not a long-term healthy
food due to the thrashing they do to insulin management.
mongol wrote 1 day ago:
The theory behind it is that potatoes are the most filling food of
all, so it is hard to over-eat. I tried this diet, and it works for
weight loss, but it soon made me feel very unsatisfied. But with a
little bit of variation, i.e. making potatoes the base and adding
limited extra ingredients, you can sustain on it longer.
ggm wrote 1 day ago:
Not wanting to be completely petty, isn't this true of all viable
hybrids? Some acquisition of genes from both sides is demanded to make
a distinction worthy of speciation.
Not that I don't love spuds.
accidentallfact wrote 1 day ago:
I don't think there is any specific feature that makes potatoes
unique.
Two chromozome copies are typical for animals, but the number of
copies in plants varies widely, and and often changes easily, even
different variants of the same crop can have different numbers of
copies.
Underground storage organs are nothing unique, and those of potatoes
are not even particularly large. Many places prohibit fig trees for
example, because what you see is basically just the tip, and there
can be a giant 100m in diameter underground that ruins every
underground structure in its path. But it's full of nasty toxic sap,
and harvesting it would be a nightmare.
It's just the particular combination of fast growth, edibility, and
ease of cloning and harvest that makes potatoes unique.
ggm wrote 1 day ago:
Well according to the article.. tomatoes supplied a gene which
turns off and on tuber expression and the other side supplied a
gene for underground stems (not roots) and to be a potato demands
both.
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