Recent Projects & Blogs
Recent Experiments

Potato

Solanum tuberosum

Potatoes are starchy tubers and a longstanding Maine field and storage crop. Aroostook County became especially closely associated with commercial potato production.1

Further notes

Potato is a New World crop, domesticated in the Andes before spreading worldwide; it belongs to the nightshade family with tomato.2

The tuber is a swollen underground stem, not a root. Its “eyes” are buds, which is why a piece of potato can grow into a new plant when it includes a live eye.3

Footnotes

  1. University of Maine Cooperative Extension, “Food & Nutrition for the Home Gardener,” accessed July 17, 2026. ↩

  2. National Park Service, “American Latino Theme Study: Food,” accessed July 17, 2026. ↩

  3. Penn State Extension, “Potatoes in the Garden and the Kitchen,” accessed July 17, 2026. ↩

Backlinks