Potato famine mystery solved

168 years ago 2 million people from Ireland and Scotland emigrated to England America and Australia more that a million people died from a pathogen that poisoned potatoes that were a important Sorce of food for most people. The disease phytophthora infecstans was thought to has caused this but a resent study by a research team used DNA sequencing of plant specimens from that period thay found it was not phytophthora infecstans that caused the blight but a unknow strain called HERB-1 which had originated in the Toluca valley in Mexico and spread to Europe it was not until the 1900 hundreds that inprovements in crop breeding stopped HERB-1 to be eradicated but there is a chance it could still be around. It was the dependency on this crop at the time that made it so devastating.