Selection of potato clones for heat tolerance and resistance to potato viruses X and Y for processing purposes

Abstract

Potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) is one of the most important crops for human consumption worldwide, representing an essential component for the food security of several countries. However, yield and quality are negatively affected by biotic and abiotic stresses. In this sense, the selection of potato cultivars tolerant to heat and resistant to diseases is of great importance. Our goal was to select clones suitable for the chips industry, having heat tolerance and bearing the Rx1 and Ryadg alleles, which confer resistance to Potato virus X and Potato virus Y. We evaluated 491 clones originating from 31 biparental crosses under three different seasons in terms of heat stress (without heat stress [WHS], moderate heat stress [MHS], and high heat stress [HHS]). The evaluated traits were specific gravity (SG), dry matter yield (DMY), and proportion of physiological disorders (PD). After evaluation in the WHS and MHS seasons, the presence of the Rx1 and Ryadg alleles was investigated with the help of molecular markers in the 68 clones showing the best performance, which descended from the DGN2103 and DGN4002 parental clones. To gather the genotypic values for all traits in each season, the clones were ranked according to an index based on the genotype–ideotype distance. On average of all seasons, the top 10% selected clones by the index were 9 and 0.1% higher than the Atlantic cultivar for the traits DMY and SG, respectively, and 80% lower than Atlantic cultivar for PD. In conclusion, we report the selection of potato clones suitable for industrial processing.