potato blight

British  

noun

1. a devastating disease of potatoes produced by the oomycete Phytophthora infestans and the cause of the Irish potato famine of the mid-19th century

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Example Sentences

Multiple factors caused the famine, including the potato blight that destroyed the main source of food, and the political and socioeconomic circumstances of British colonial rule.

From BBC • May 22, 2026

Even 175 years after Ireland's devastating famine caused by an introduced potato blight, we're still struggling to combat these diseases.

From Salon • May 31, 2023

The potato demonstrates a well-known example of the risks of low crop diversity: the tragic Irish potato famine when the single variety grown in Ireland became susceptible to a potato blight, wiping out the crop.

From Textbooks • Jun. 9, 2022

Von Hippel begins with efforts to tackle the causes of potato blight, which triggered the Irish Potato Famine of the 1840s, and vector-borne diseases such as malaria, yellow fever and typhus.

From Nature • Aug. 30, 2020

Burning suns, a weedy garden and potato blight may dismay the old, but such things do not fret the young mind.

From Dwellers in Arcady The Story of an Abandoned Farm by Fogarty, Thomas