Irish Potato Blight

Down in Bingham County, seed potato specialists have discovered late blight in potato crops. Knowing how devastating this disease can be, I called University of Idaho seed potato specialist Dr. Phill Nolte. “there is a blight on our potatoes. Not a pox, but a blight. This blight is nothing new. In terms of the types of disease problems that we normally face in potatoes this is nothing new. It just happens to be the late blight disease and potatoes and if we go back in history about 150 years, this was the disease that was responsible for the Irish potato famine. It wiped out the potato crops. This is when it came to the attention of mankind. Prior to that it may have been around occasionally but when it hit Ireland it hit an entire European continent. It caused a lot of issues all over the continent when it came in back in those days. The Irish were particularly hard hit because they had, over the years, gotten into a position where their main food was potatoes. The rest of Europe had other things to beat but not the Irish.