Scientists solve Irish potato famine mystery

May 21, 2013

An international team of biologists have discovered the plant-pathogen strain that was the cause of the devastating 1840s Irish potato famine. The discovery was found after examining 170-year-old dried leaves from plants that were diseased during the potato famine.

“We have finally discovered the identity of the exact strain that caused all this havoc”, says Hernán Burbano from the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology.

The strain they call HERB-1 is believed to have caused the 19th century disaster. Ireland lost a quarter of its population to death or immigration between 1845 and1850. Until now, it was previously thought that US-1 strain was the culprit. The leaves have been collected for over 50 years from Ireland, the U.K., Europe and parts of North America.

The samples were preserved in London, by the Botanical State Collection Munich and Kew Gardens. The preservation allowed scientists to be able to decode the genomes of 11 samples from the potato leaves. According to the group of scientists, the DNA preservation in the leave samples were impressive.

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