
Potato Offers Resistance to Late Blight
DiseaseBy Marcia
Wood
ABERDEEN, Idaho, Dec. 17--A new potato with resistance to the
worlds worst potato disease is now available to plant breeders. This potato is highly resistant to attack by late blight, the disease
that caused the Irish potato famine of the 1840s," said plant pathologist
Dennis L. Corsini with the Agricultural
Research Service in Aberdeen, Idaho. He and colleagues at Aberdeen and at
Prosser, Wash., developed the new spud, known as AWN86514-2. The Agricultural
Research Service is the chief research agency of the
U.S. Department of Agriculture. Commercial varieties bred from the new potato are at least six years away,
Corsini cautions. Late blight is caused by a fungus called Phytophthora infestans. New,
more aggressive strains that are fungicide-resistant have appeared in recent
years, so breeders have been scrambling to find potatoes with natural
resistance. "The new potato held up well when attacked by the newest and most
virulent strains of the fungus, Corsini said. It was far more
resistant than any of the commercial potato varieties now in production in the
United States." Corsini and ARS geneticist Joseph J. Pavek at Aberdeen coordinated field
experiments by ARS and other scientists in eight states and a heavily
blight-infested region of Mexico. Corsini and Pavek are making laboratory-produced plantlets, and small tubers
suitable for planting, available to breeders. They hope AWN86514-2 can be bred
with top-rated experimental potatoes or commercially successful varieties to
boost their disease resistance. Then, farmers could eventually have new,
blight-resistant commercial varieties. But breeding and testing could take six
to 10 years or more. Tests by Corsini have shown that AWN86514-2 also resists viruses that cause
two other potato diseases, potato virus Y and potato leafroll virus. The new
potato's parents are a french-fry variety--Ranger Russet, developed by
Pavek--and a potato selected from Poland's
potato breeding
institute. ARS released the new potato in collaboration with the agricultural
experiment stations of Oregon, Idaho and Washington. Potatoes--whether baked or processed into chips, fries, potato flakes or
other products--are the nation's favorite vegetable. The average American eats
about 143 pounds of potatoes a year. An article about AWN86514-2 will appear early next year in the American Journal of Potato
Research. Scientific contact: Dennis L. Corsini, ARS
Small Grains and Potato
Research Unit, Aberdeen, Idaho, phone (208) 397-4181, fax (208) 397-4311,
[email protected] Story contacts Marcia A Wood U.S. Department of Agriculture | |