Absolute nonsense, Maggie. I've said it several times before, nothing to do with Donuel: Scientific American, Nature, New Scientist and their ilk are popular science magazines. They are not learned journals. I actually take learned journals from two disciplines in which I've had a lifelong interest. The gulf between their peer-reviewed content and what you (and I) read in popular science magazines is vast. There is nothing wrong with them unless you are suckered into thinking that they're the last word. They are not, they have to sell copies from magazine racks or annual subs to survive, and if you quote them in ignorance of the real leading-edge science you are in danger of being misled. The banner headline of the fungus piece in SA is a sensationalist piece of scaremongering that is not reflected either by the content of the article, which is largely anecdotal, or by real science. Have you even looked at it? There may be some truth in the content apropos of threats from fungi, but the world is not about to melt down in a mass of mycelium any time soon. To their credit, they do quote sources from peer-reviewed science in some cases (not this one), but I do wonder how many of their readers actually follow those up. Yes they are respectable and respected. They are still just potted science. By the way, if you click on the name of the journalist who penned the article you will see a list of other articles of hers which, undeniably, generally kick off on the sensationalist side of things. SA has to sell copies. Good luck to it.

One problem with potato blight, Kevin, is that the potato fields or allotment plots you see consist of a single variety. As potatoes are reproduced vegetatively, what you see are clones. Because there is no genetic variability, each and every plant is equally susceptible to blight, so the fungus sweeps through the whole crop and destroys the lot. Efforts to find blight-resistant varieties have met with limited success. Our predilection for growing vast areas of monoculture makes us our own worst enemy in some regards.