Why no potatos in Chinese Manchuria?

So here's the thing. Potatoes rock. Far, far better yields for acre than maize, rye, wheat or any other cereal, far less vulnerable to rampaging armies and antsy nomad raiders, and far more nutritious to boot.

And it's not like Ming and Qing China have been coy about adapting the sweet Potato or Maize (widely grown in Manchuria today) from the Spanish and Portugese. And yet, the Potato, ideal for the manchurian climate and heavily grown on the Russian side of the border, has never been widely used in China.

What gives? It would seem to give the enterprising Shandong settler leasing a plot of land from a Manchu/Mongol bannerman, not to mention his relative suffering from famine and warlords a serious leg up compared to his neighbors- and nada. How come the Potato never got established in Northern China?
 
There`s potatoes in Korea but they`re not so cheap here. Maybe heavy rainfall in the summer makes the soil too wet for them?
 
I don't think famine was the issue in Chinese Manchuria, it was underpopulated, rice was enough to feed the Korean settlers there, the Chinese survived on sorghum, which was good enough. BTW, potatoes were heavily cultivated in populated regions of NW China.
 
There`s potatoes in Korea but they`re not so cheap here. Maybe heavy rainfall in the summer makes the soil too wet for them?

precipitation map of china:
c2.gif


the areas in europe where potatos are grown are mostly in the 800-1200mm range, so there should not be a problem with that
 
Han Chinese people didn't get established in Manchuria until the late 19th century, which is probably why potatoes didn't get established there until then.
 
It is odd since potatoes, corn/maize, and sweet potatoes come from the Americas by the 1600's (potatoes & sweet potatoes from Peru/Bolivia and corn from Mexico and North America.) There's several thousand varieties of potatoes developed by the tribes before the Incas, Chacopoyan, Chimu, etc. for every elevation, soil chemistry, rainfall, etc. and in a wide range of flavors. They're a great source of Vitamin C and other key nutrients, Europe's population increased 40% with the potatoe's widespread plantings there, albeit the sweet potato or yam has much of the same nutritional value as just another varieties from those highly skilled plant developers. There's Chinese contact in both Mexico and Peru during the Shang dynasty, which may be how the sweet potato spread to Polynesia and SE Asia centuries before the Spanish, earlier Chinese contacts with at least corn culture regions when the Chinese called North America "Fu Sang" and later contact if Gavin Menzies' research on Zheng He's voyages is correct (I think it is.) There may have been potato blights like Ireland's few varieties of potatoes succumbed to in the 1840's or just local preferences.
 
Starchy tubers in general don't have much prestige in China and never really featured as the main carbohydrate component of a meal. While a large number of tubers and grains were grown and eaten all over China in historical times, they started to decline in popularity once better technology improved yields and let rice and wheat really take off. Yams have been relegated to mostly medicinal purposes, taro never features as a primary starch, and sweet potatoes, while slightly more popular, are commonly thought of as peasant food or food for people too poor to afford rice. The fact that sweet, starchy vegetables like sweet potatoes and pumpkins are more popular than bland starchy ones like yams, taro, and potatoes is probably significant as well.

The continued disinterest in beans other than soy as a major food source in China is curious as well. Adzuki, mung, and fava beans have been grown in China for a thousand years or more. Chickpeas are a slightly more recent introduction but have been around for centuries. Besides things like desserts, snacks, and, in Sichuan, fermented sauces, beans of any type besides soy aren't major food items.
 

You need to compare that to rice, and other cereal yields in the same area. the map is misleading since Yields for acre in China are higher due to more intensive cultivation.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-01-30/kung-pao-potato-can-china-learn-to-love-the-spud-

https://www.chinadialogue.net/artic...ed-China-cut-pollution-and-alleviate-drought-

In any event I was referring more to 19th century and earlier practices. Modern China has made a concentrated attempt to introduce the Potato, with limited sucess.
 
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