The potato is one of the most cultivated products in the world. Its consumption is intended for human feeding in fresh, for cattle feeding and as raw material for the food and agriculture processing industries, such as chips, potato flakes, frozen potatoes, etc.

Given the numerous countries devoted to its culture and the great variety of potatoes that exist, its availability in the markets is assured all the year round.

The potato is a good source of energy, with a high content of folate, vitamin C, group B vitamins, iron and potassium. It is dangerous to consume greenish potatoes because they contain a compound that is toxic if taken in great amounts.

The potato is one of the most cultivated products in the world. Its consumption is intended for human feeding in fresh, for cattle feeding and as raw material for food and agriculture processing industries, such as chips, potato flakes, frozen potatoes, etc.

Given the numerous countries devoted to its culture and the great variety of potatoes that exists, its availability in the markets is assured all the year round.

Potatoes have numerous uses: they can be intended for direct human consumption, cattle feeding, many processing industries such as the manufacture of dehydrated purees, the manufacture of crisps, chips, cooked, frozen, etc. It can be also intended for the starch industry for nutritional prurposes, or for the distillation industry to obtain alcohol.

The name ‘patata’ (potato) was given by the Spaniards for the plant’s similarity to the "batatas" (sweet potatoes), original name with which some Antillean towns designated sweet potatoes, that were plants found during the first years of the conquest of America.

The potato is an essential element in the Mediterranean diet and it is given for food to many domestic animals; it is also necessary to obtain by-products in some industries.

It is a very demanding culture, both for soil and fertilizers, and it requires a strong defense against the great number of insects that attack the plant and its tubers.

The potato is a tuber, round or oval, with small white roots called " eyes", that are growth buds. The size varies depending on the variety; the colour of the skin can be white, yellow or even purple.

The potato culture had an enormous importance in Ireland, since it was part of the basic food. Nevertheless, this enormous dependency lead to a famine when seeing the plant was attacked by the " mildew’; great part of the population emigrated to North American territories, fleeing from that calamity. The potato is one of the most extended cultures in all the continents and due to increase of its consumption it is gaining importance.

The area of potato production is very wide and it depends on the climatic conditions of each place and not on the soil. The potato production has spreaded to all the countries in the N and S Hemisphere, except the tropical countries. Since it is original from very high and cold regions, the potato can be cultivated from the sea level to 1000 meters high.

The potato can be harvested green (summer in the N Hemisphere), before it acquires its maximum level of dry matter (starch). This potato is consumed as " new potato’, with a waxed texture that makes it appropriate for salads. Potatoes are classified as "extraearly", ‘early’ and " late’, indicated by the time it takes to mature. The late potato, harvested in autumn, is stored in controlled atmospheres and it is available for its marketing until the " extraearly’ potato comes again.

Thus, according to the Fresh Produce Desk Book of 2001, the potato is available in the English market all the year round. Countries like Belgium, France and Italy are potato suppliers throughout the year. Others, such as Spain, provide potatoes from the end of spring (in the N Hemisphere) until the beginning of summer.

The potato belongs to the family of the Solanaceae and its fruit is an organ that grows under the soil, called tuber. It is an herbaceous plant cultivated in annual form, very demanding in water; it reproduces in a vegetative way.

The potato, Solanum tuberosum L., is an herbaceous species, perennial because of its tubers but cultivated as an annual plant. The potato is a round green berry that becomes yellow when ripe.

The potato plant has an aerial vascular system and a subterranean one, of rhizome nature, where tubers originate. Its roots are branched, its aerial stems are erect and the leaves are compound.

In the underground, stems develop some protuberances called tubers, that we know as potatoes. They may have a kind of scales that are the growth buds; they are known as ‘eyes’.

The potato plant has a very toxic substance called solanine that may appear in the tubers if they are put under direct sunlight.

The potato requires good culture conditions. It requires plentiful and regular humidity mainly in the period of tube formation, it suffers under excessively high temperatures and it is very sensitive to drought. It freezes at temperatures lower than -2ºC, although it sprouts at 2ºC and maximum between 20-25ºC.

It adapts better to sandy soils than to clay ground.

The potato is multiplied either by seeds or by cuttings, but actually the multiplication is vegetative, that is to say, by means of tubers that produce buds also called "eyes’.