Tag Archives: genome

Late Blight Resistant Potatoes

Late blight (Phytophthora infestans) is one of the most devastating diseases of potatoes. The disease causes the leaves of the potato to wither and rot, and it can cause the tubers to rot as well. This is the same disease that was responsible for destroying the potato crop during the Irish Famine in the 1800s. Thus, resistance to this blight will be of major help to potato growers, especially in moister climates, such as those in the British Isles and the northeastern United States. In tomatoes, late blight resistance is being developed through traditional breeding programs. A high yielding tomato variety is crossed a late blight resistant wild species, then each descendent generation is crossed with the original variety, while still being selected for blight resistance. The end result is a variety with all the traits of the original variety and the resistance of the wild species. This is known as backcross breeding.  However, breeding resistance through this traditional methods has been difficult to achieve in potatoes, as they do not outcross well to the wild, resistant species. Thus, a gene from the wild species for late blight resistance was taken and inserted into the genome of the domestic potato, resulting in a plant similar to the product of backcross breeding. This potato variety was developed by the same institute that developed the anthocyanin containing tomatoes, the John Innes Centre, Norwich, UK.

Devastation from Late Blight

Devastation from Late Blight

Info. from the breeder

http://news.jic.ac.uk/2014/02/gm-spuds-beat-blight/

The alternative opinion

http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php/news/archive/2014/15313-gm-potato-research-a-waste-of-money

And a news article on the development of the potato

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-26189722