Spread of Potato Cultivation in Europe

Timeline

1. c. -8000–1530Andean highlands · Peru-Bolivia PlateauThe Inca and earlier cultures domesticated and systematically cultivated potatoes in the Andean highlands, developing diverse local varieties and storage and crop-rotation techniques that provided the genetic and agronomic basis for transoceanic spread.
2. c. 1570–1600Castile, Spain · SpainPotatoes reached Iberia aboard colonial trading fleets, initially mostly as garden curiosities or fodder; agronomists and monastic networks began recording their tuber yields and storage-keeping properties.
3. 1631Ireland and the Low Countries · Ireland and the Low CountriesBy the 1630s relatively stable potato trials and small-scale expansion had appeared in Ireland, the Low Countries, and parts of the German lands, with farmers using them as supplementary food in years of grain failure; spread was still constrained by ecclesiastical suspicion and traditional grain-farming systems.