Is there anything analogous to potato-driven growth & potato blight in Ukraine? I thought the two stories were completely different because of this. Ireland ha

Is there anything analogous to potato-driven growth & potato blight in Ukraine? I thought the two stories were completely different because of this. Ireland had a spectacular mono-crop boom, followed by a crash, and I think it's uncontroversial that this was triggered by a disease, whatever the view of the response. I don't know of any similar boom in the Ukraine prior to the famine, nor any trigger besides what the guys with guns in Moscow wanted done.