Tracking a Plant Killer: Historical and Scientific Reflections on the Irish Famine Pathogen
Professor Jean Ristaino’s fascinating lecture on the origins of Phytophthora infestans, the pathogen that caused the Irish potato famine.
We were delighted to welcome Fulbright Scholar, Professor Jean Ristaino to the Royal Irish Academy to deliver a public lecture on the migrations and spread of the Irish famine pathogen.
You can now watch a video of this talk above. Please note the video is composed of an audio recording from the night along with presentation slides.
About the lecture:
Professor Ristaino’s lecture tells the story of the pathogen Phytophthora infestans which entered the shores of Ireland in 1845 and devastated the potato crop. Two years prior the same plant pathogen had caused potato blight in the north-east region of the United States. No one knew where it came from or how the plant disease could be controlled. In Ireland, the pathogen left devastation in its wake: a country of eight million lost one quarter of its population to death and emigration. The population of Ireland would never rebound.
Professor Ristaino’s talk traces the evolution of scientific thinking about the underlying causes of late blight before delving into Professor Ristaino’s own research journey, which culminated in the genome sequencing of historic plant DNA to establish where the pathogen that caused the potato blight originated.
This event was organised by the Academy’s Climate Change and Environmental Sciences committee in collaboration with the editorial board of Biology and Environment: Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy and with support from the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine.