BS: Irish Potato Blight- Cause found

Subject: RE: BS: Irish Potato Famine- Cause found
From: GUEST,Alan
Date: 24 May 13 - 02:20 PM

There was no famine in Ireland, just a potato blight. Plenty of other vegetables were grown by the Irish,unfortunately England took them from Ireland and left the people to starve.

Subject: RE: BS: Irish Potato Famine- Cause found
From: beardedbruce
Date: 24 May 13 - 01:59 PM

No disagreement with last two posts- thread title SHOULD have been
"Irish Potato Blight- Cause Found"

Mea culpa.

Subject: RE: BS: Irish Potato Famine- Cause found
From: GUEST,sciencegeek
Date: 24 May 13 - 01:56 PM

'fraid I have to agree with Peter K - my first thought when I saw the OP was that we may have a better ID on the cause of the potato blight, but the famine was a whole different matter.

Ireland was EXPORTING food, while the Irish people starved. And there has been speculation that many of the landed gentry thought it was a good way to bring the "lazy Irish" into submission - since before the blight it was easy enough to feed an Irish family from the potato crop and not have to submit to the typical type of labor that the industrialized areas of Great Britain were forced into to make a so called "living wage".

Subject: RE: BS: Irish Potato Famine- Cause found
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 24 May 13 - 01:33 PM

They may have found what destroyed the taties, but what mostly caused the famine was - to put it at its least contentious - indifference within what was then the British Ruling Class.

Subject: RE: BS: Irish Potato Famine- Cause found
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 24 May 13 - 01:15 PM

This particular strain may have run its course, but the P. infestans species complex continues, and it has shown its variability.

The article is well-worth reading.

Subject: RE: BS: Irish Potato Famine- Cause found
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 24 May 13 - 11:52 AM

A very interesting note in the articles about this new finding is the belief that the blight was a "new thing" that was somewhat different, genetically, from any previous similar crop diseases, and more importantly - if true - the people who reported this result believe it may have "run its course" and may be extinct now.

Of course we "eradicated smallpox" too(?), but that hasn't prevented at least three research labs from making it "from scratch" in the lab.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Irish Potato Famine- Cause found
From: GUEST,Blind DRunk in Blind River
Date: 24 May 13 - 11:44 AM

For flip's sake! Everbuddy knows the flippin' cause of the potato famine, man! It was that there wasn't enuff potatos for awhiles becoz of diseese and so the people got too hungry and they all started starvin' to death. That is why my fambly the McBrides came to North America in the first plase, eh? Canada can thank the flippin' potato famine coz without it I wood not BE here! And that would be a trajeddy.

- Shane

Subject: BS: Irish Potato Famine- Cause found
From: beardedbruce
Date: 24 May 13 - 11:36 AM

The Irish potato famine that caused mass starvation and approximately 1 million deaths in the mid-19th century was triggered by a newly identified strain of potato blight that has been christened "HERB-1," according to a new study.



http://news.yahoo.com/mystery-irish-potato-famine-solved-140830483.html