Crops Originating from Peru - Potato, Chili Pepper, Theobroma Cacao, Quinoa, Acai Palm, Brazil Nut, Lepidium Meyenii, Annona Cherimola (Paperback)

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Pages: 50. Chapters: Potato, Chili pepper, Theobroma cacao, Quinoa, Acai palm, Brazil nut, Lepidium meyenii, Annona cherimola, Physalis peruviana, Solanum muricatum, Cherimoya, Solanum pseudocapsicum, Yacon, Pouteria caimito, Fique, Bixa orellana, Oxalis tuberosa, Caigua, Tamarillo, Arracacha, Gossypium barbadense, Juglans neotropica, Pouteria lucuma, Banana passionfruit, Mashua, Nicotiana glauca, Ulluco, Mirabilis expansa, Solanum caripense, Mountain papaya, Lupinus mutabilis, Quararibea cordata, Sambucus peruviana. Excerpt: The potato is a starchy, tuberous crop from the perennial Solanum tuberosum of the Solanaceae family (also known as the nightshades). The word potato may refer to the plant itself as well as the edible tuber. In the region of the Andes, there are some other closely related cultivated potato species. Potatoes were first introduced outside the Andes region four centuries ago, and have become an integral part of much of the world's cuisine. It is the world's fourth-largest food crop, following rice, wheat, and maize. Long-term storage of potatoes requires specialised care in cold warehouses. Wild potato species occur throughout the Americas, from the United States to Uruguay. The potato was originally believed to have been domesticated independently in multiple locations, but later genetic testing of the wide variety of cultivars and wild species proved a single origin for potatoes in the area of present-day southern Peru (from a species in the Solanum brevicaule complex), where they were domesticated 7,000-10,000 years ago. Following centuries of selective breeding, there are now over a thousand different types of potatoes. Of these subspecies, a variety that at one point grew in the Chiloe Archipelago (the potato's south-central Chilean sub-center of origin) left its germplasm on over 99% of the cultivated potatoes ...