Russia is in the grip of a virulent new strain of the infamous potato late
blight. The original strain, which caused the 19th-century Irish potato famine,
was asexual, but more potent sexual strains reached Europe in 1976. The
aggressive new strains found in Russian soil samples “are virulent, resistant to
fungicides and are creating havoc”, says K. V. Raman, a plant pathologist at
Cornell University. Small Russian farms simply can’t afford the heavy doses of
fungicide needed to stop the blight.
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