Potato Trivia Quiz Questions and Answers
What is a potato?
A: The potato is a starchy, tuberous crop from the perennial nightshade Solanum
tuberosum L.
The word "potato" may refer either to the plant itself or
the what?
A: Edible tuber.
In the Andes, where the species is indigenous, there are
some other what?
A: Closely related cultivated potato species.
Potatoes were introduced outside the Andes region
approximately how long ago?
A: Four centuries.
Potatoes are the world's fourth-largest what?
A: Food crop, following maize, wheat, and rice.
Wild potato species occur where?
A: Throughout the Americas from the United States to southern Chile.
After centuries of selective breeding, there are now how
many different types of potatoes?
A: Over a thousand.
Over 99% of the currently cultivated potatoes worldwide
descended from varieties that originated where?
A: In the lowlands of south-central Chile.
As of 2007, what country led the world in potato
production?
A: China.
In what two countries were nearly a third of the world's
potatoes harvested?
A: In China and India.
The English word potato comes from what Spanish word?
A: Patata (the name used in Spain).
The name potato originally referred to a type of what?
A: Sweet potato.
The name spud for a small potato comes from what?
A: The digging of soil (or a hole) prior to the planting of potatoes.
Potato plants are herbaceous perennials that grow about how
high, depending on variety?
A: 24 in.
Potatoes are mostly cross-pollinated by what?
A: Insects such as bumblebees, which carry pollen from other potato plants.
Tubers form in response to what?
A: Decreasing day length.
After flowering, potato plants produce small green fruits
that resemble what?
A: Green cherry tomatoes, each containing about 300 seeds.
Like all parts of the plant except the tubers, the fruit
contain what?
A: The toxic alkaloid solanine and are therefore unsuitable for consumption.
All new potato varieties are grown from what?
A: Seeds, also called "true potato seed", "TPS" or "botanical seed" to
distinguish it from seed tubers.
New varieties grown from seed can be propagated
vegetatively by doing what?
A: Planting tubers, pieces of tubers cut to include at least one or two eyes, or
cuttings.
Plants propagated from tubers are what?
A: Clones of the parent.
Plants propagated from seed produce a range of what?
A: Different varieties.
Why has cross-breeding has been done repeatedly?
A: To transfer resistances to certain pests and diseases from the gene pool of
wild species to the gene pool of cultivated potato species.
Genetically modified varieties have met public what, in the
United States and in the European Union?
A: Resistance.
The potato genome contains how many chromosomes?
A: 12.
More than 99 percent of all current varieties of potatoes
currently grown are direct descendants of a subspecies that once grew where?
A: In the lowlands of south-central Chile.
Genetic testing of the wide variety of cultivars and wild
species affirms that all potato subspecies derive from a what?
A: A single origin in the area of present-day southern
Peru and extreme
northwestern Bolivia.
Most modern potatoes grown in North America arrived through
what?
A: European settlement and not independently from the South American sources.
When was the potato was first domesticated?
A: Between 8000 and 5000 BC.
According to conservative estimates, the introduction of
the potato was responsible for what?
A: A quarter of the growth in Old World population and urbanization between 1700
and 1900.
The Spanish introduced the potato to where?
A: Europe in the second half of the 16th century.
The staple was subsequently conveyed by European mariners
to where?
A: Territories and ports throughout the world.
The lack of genetic diversity, due to the very limited
number of varieties initially introduced, left the crop what?
A: Vulnerable to disease.
In 1845, a plant disease known as late blight, spread
rapidly through where?
A: The poorer communities of western
Ireland, resulting in the crop failures
that led to the Great Irish Famine.
Thousands of varieties still persist where?
A: In the Andes.
According to the United Nations FAO reports, what was the
world production of potatoes in 2013?
A: About 368 million tonnes.
Just over two thirds of the global production is eaten
directly by what?
A: Humans with the rest being fed to
animals or used to produce starch.
