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11 July 2011

Genetic breakthrough opens up a potential for new potato varieties

New Zealand experts are part of an international team of scientists that has cracked the genetic code of the potato, creating the potential to selectively breed new varieties much faster.

This could potentially result in potatoes with improved nutritional value and yields as well as increased resistance to drought, extreme temperature and diseases and pests such as psyllid.

Terry Olsen, chairman of Potatoes New Zealand which supported the New Zealand team’s work funded by Plant & Food Research, hails the development as a fantastic breakthrough with far-reaching potential.

“It’s a great achievement and adds significantly to the range of tools we have available to us,” he says.

“Clearly the potential for breeding new potatoes is very exciting but there may also be many other benefits we have not even thought of yet.”

The potato genome sequence will reduce the 10-12 years traditionally needed to breed new varieties and by improving yield, help address the predicted global food shortage.

Mr Olsen says it will enable Potatoes New Zealand to identify genome sequences which have the desired qualities at an early stage. This means scientists will be able to target the breeding programme and reduce the number of plants screened to around 5,000, achieving the end goal a lot faster.

“The traditional process of selective cross breeding to create a cultivar with the desired size, skin consistency, disease resistance, flavour and so on would usually take many generations of crosses to get the desired result,” Mr Olsen says.

“The potato genome sequence now gives us a library of information. We can identify genes of interest, select potatoes that have that characteristic and speed up the breeding of desired new cultivars.”


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