New Potatoes More than 30,000,000 acres of potatoes are grown
in the world, and of that number more than half are grown in Russia. This is one of many extremely interesting facts taken from a paper by J. M. Bukasov, some extracts from which are included in the current number of The Countryman by courtesy of Sir Rowland Biffen, Emeritus Professor of Botany at Cambridge University. This admirable article tells how the Russians—who never of course do anything to justify their existence on the earth's surface—sent M. Bukasov to Guatemala,-Mexico and Colombia to investigate the possibility of acquiring new species—not varieties—of potato. Further expeditions were sent to Peru, Bolivia, Chile and Ecuador. The results were astounding. M. Bukasov himself collected Over 5,000 specimens, and potatoes were discovered growing at extreme elevations over a total latitude of 60 degrees. Species were found in tropical valleys and others at exposed had frost-bound altitudes. The rainfall in all the native potato fields varied extremely and everywhere different species had been cultivated for centuries. Yet for nearly four hundred years the potato had been presumed to be a single species ! The results of the Russians' expeditions and their subsequent investigations in hybridization are of incalculable value. The production of frost-resistant commercial varieties is for
instance already a certainty, and various frost-resistant hybrids have been evolved which produce a high yield of good-quality potatoes.. The Russians' enterprise indeed has so impressed the world that the German Breeding Institute, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Soallif Institute in Sweden, have all been potato-hunting in Soviet footsteps.
Previous page
