Submitted to: Journal of the American Society for Horticultural Science
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: August 23, 1999
Publication Date: N/A
Interpretive Summary: The interest in potato tuber yellow-flesh is increasing in the United States because of their perceived better taste, improved nutritional content, and quality. Depending on the clone grown, potato tuber flesh can range from white to very dark yellow or almost orange. The purpose of this study was to determine the inheritance of tuber yellow-flesh intensity so that an appropriate breeding strategy could be employed to develop new yellow-flesh potato cultivars. Yellow-flesh intensity was highly heritable, indicating that rapid progress can be made through breeding in developing very intense yellow-flesh cultivars in the future. This research will be of interest to potato breeders.
Technical Abstract: Although potato tuber yellow-flesh is known to be controlled by a single gene, intensity of yellow-flesh varies widely in Solanum species. The inheritance of yellow-flesh intensity at the diploid level was investigated in a hybrid population of S. phureja-S. stenotomum. Six randomly chosen male parents were crossed to 5 randomly chosen female parents in a Design II mating scheme. In 1993 approximately 12 clones from each of 30 families were planted in a randomized complete block design with 2 replications and evaluated for tuber yellow flesh intensity as measured by a reflectance colorimeter. Twenty-five tubers from each plot were scored using the YI E-313 yellow intensity scale. Narrow sense heritability on a plot mean basis was estimated as 0.99 with a standard error of 0.65-0.72. There were significant differences among clones within a family. The results suggest that rapid progress can be made in breeding for intense yellow-flesh in this population. Clones from this population that produce 2n gametes represent an important source of germplasm for enhancing intensity of the yellow-flesh trait in tetraploid potatoes.