Purpose

Research

In order for one to grasp the growth capabilities of the potato one must first look to its history to find how the potato was discovered, were it was discovered, and how people used the spud. The history of the potato begins in the Andes Mountains of Peru with the mighty Incan Empire and its subjects using the potato as a major source of food. The Inca found that the potato was a useful source of nutrients that could grow in almost any climate. The potato was first introduced to Europeans through the Spanish Conquistadors who, under the leadership of Francisco Pizzaro, conquered the Incan Empire.

The potato found little use in the old world due primarily to the fact that the nations that had the spud to their disposal had very little land with the proper climates to produce potatoes. The potato would call Ireland its European home by the 1780's and was named the official crop of Ireland mostly because of its nutritious importance.

The history of the potato shows that the spud was not very prominent in Western Europe due to the climate found in Iberia (Spain and Portugal), which was hot, and dry. Therefore, the potato could scarcely be grown in Iberia (with the exception of the Sierra Leon de la Espana); and storage was also nearly impossible. The potato would grow prominent in Ireland for just the opposite reasons. The cool, lush Irish countryside provided the potatoes with just the right ingredients for their production.

Potatoes grow primarily in cool, wet soil in temperatures spanning from 40-70 degrees Fahrenheit. Other factors include the seed size, sprout health, position of the eye on the mother tuber, and volume of the ground, or in our case water/cup. The bulk of these factors greatly explain how the potato did not grow well in Iberia, and how it grew well in Ireland.

The potato is actually a plant called a tuber; tubers are plant created by other plants to store nutrients. More specifically, potatoes are categorized as stem tubers, in that, they are small, brown pods that are attached to long, green stems. Fortunately for our experiment we will not be dealing with soil so we will only see roots sprouting from the surface of the potato. Potatoes naturally have a single growing season and are used as means of propagation for farmers. The potato grows the best in the fall due to its extremely slow, but bountiful harvest and is also in the need of the fall rains/snows, along with the cold temperature. Despite this fact, we believe that the soil will be of no real use to use as the tuber should grow in a cold, wet environment and therefore shall grow in water far quicker than in soil.