Irish potato famine

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Student sitting on Ireland cliffs

Student Stories: Plant Science students travel to the Emerald Isle

8/4/16

Penn State Plant Science majors Casey Baxter and Mikaela Hermstedt may know all there is to know about the Irish potato famine. This past spring, they took HORT 499H Walking in the Footsteps of the Irish During the Irish Potato Famine: Examinations of New World Crops in Old World Societies. The honors class included a 10-day trip to Ireland after a semester of lectures on the potato and other essential crops of both the United States and Ireland.

Tough Potatoes

1/1/00

What's the potato equivalent of a sneeze?

For Steve Pechous, a graduate student in plant physiology, it's not a nonsense question. "One of the main things I've learned," he says, "is that at the molecular level, plants and animals are much more similar than they are different. The way they respond to disease looks different, but actually both respond hypersensitively. Animals cough or sneeze. Plants produce defensive chemicals."