Solanum boyacense — Edible Plant Database

What to Eat

Edible parts: Root

Potato dishes vary around the world. Peruvian cuisine naturally contains the potato as a primary ingredient in many dishes, as around 3,000 varieties of the tuber are grown there. Chuño is a freeze-dried potato product traditionally made by Quechua and Aymara communities of Peru and Bolivia. In the UK, potatoes form part of the traditional dish fish and chips. Roast potatoes are commonly served as part of a Sunday roast dinner and mashed potatoes form a major component of several other traditional dishes, such as shepherd's pie, bubble and squeak, and bangers and mash. New potatoes may be cooked with mint and are often served with butter. In Germany, Northern Europe (Finland, Latvia and especially Scandinavian countries), Eastern Europe (Russia, Belarus and Ukraine) and Poland, newly harvested, early ripening varieties are considered a special delicacy. Boiled whole and served un-peeled with dill, these "new potatoes" are traditionally consumed with Baltic herring. Puddings made from grated potatoes (kugel, kugelis, and potato babka) are popular items of Ashkenazi, Lithuanian, and Belarusian cuisine. Cepelinai, the national dish of Lithuania, are dumplings made from boiled grated potatoes, usually stuffed with minced meat. In Italy, in the Friuli region, potatoes serve to make a type of pasta called gnocchi. Potato is used in northern China where rice is not easily grown, a popular dish being 青椒土豆丝 (qīng jiāo tǔ dòu sī), made with green pepper, vinegar and thin slices of potato. In the winter, roadside sellers in northern China sell roasted potatoes.

Known Hazards

Raw potatoes contain toxic glycoalkaloids, of which the most prevalent are solanine and chaconine. Solanine is found in other plants in the same family, Solanaceae, which includes such plants as deadly nightshade (Atropa belladonna), henbane (Hyoscyamus niger) and tobacco (Nicotiana spp.), as well as food plants like tomato. These compounds, which protect the potato plant from its predators, are especially concentrated in the aerial parts of the plant. The tubers are low in these toxins, unless they are exposed to light, which makes them go green. Exposure to light, physical damage, and age increase glycoalkaloid content within the tuber. Different potato varieties contain different levels of glycoalkaloids. The 'Lenape' variety, released in 1967, was withdrawn in 1970 as it contained high levels of glycoalkaloids. Since then, breeders of new varieties test for this, sometimes discarding an otherwise promising cultivar. Breeders try to keep glycoalkaloid levels below 200 mg/kg (0.0032 oz/lb). However, when these commercial varieties turn green, their solanine concentrations can go well above this limit, with higher levels in the potato's skin.

Where to Find It

A tropical plant.

Colombia, Peru, South America, Venezuela,

Countries: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Peru, Paraguay, Suriname, Uruguay, Venezuela

How to Identify

A frost-tender perennial with hermaphroditic insect-pollinated flowers. Accommodates light sandy, medium loamy, or heavy clay soils with good drainage across mildly acidic to mildly alkaline pH ranges. Requires full sun and moist soil.

How to Grow

Succeeds in most soils. Dislikes wet or heavy clay soils. Prefers a slightly acid soil, the tubers are subject to scab on limy soils or those deficient in humus. Yields best on a fertile soil rich in organic matter. This plant is one of the S. American species of potatoes. It is not frost hardy but can probably be grown in much the same way as potatoes are grown by planting out the tubers in spring and harvesting in the autumn. Plants might have strict daylength requirements and may yield poorly in temperate zones because they need short-days in order to induce tuber-formation. This species is sometimes cultivated for its edible tubers in S. America.

Propagation: Sow seeds in early spring in warm greenhouse. Prick seedlings into nutrient-rich compost at first handling stage and promote rapid growth before planting out after final frosts. Divide tubers by harvesting in autumn after frost kills foliage, storing in cool frost-free conditions through winter, and replanting in April.

Medicinal Uses

None known

Other Uses

None known Special Uses

Wikipedia

Source ↗

A frost-tender perennial with hermaphroditic insect-pollinated flowers. Accommodates light sandy, medium loamy, or heavy clay soils with good drainage across mildly acidic to mildly alkaline pH ranges. Requires full sun and moist soil.

Notes

There are about 1400 Solanum species.

Names & Synonyms

Solanum boyacence

References (2)

Plants for a Future database, The Field, Penpol, Lostwithiel, Cornwall, PL22 0NG, UK. http://www.scs.leeds.ac.uk/pfaf/ (As Solanum boyacence)
Trudy vsecouz. sezda genetike 3:609. 1929 (As Solanum boyacence)