Breeding, disease resistance screening and seed production of new potatoe varities.

Abstract

The potato breeding programme at Oak Park was started in the 1960's and has consisted of a number of distinct phases. In the first phase the focus was on the testing of the main domestic and foreign varieties in field trials in the main potato growing areas of the country. This was followed by a breeding programme for the domestic market, with particular emphasis on the production of a blight resistant replacement for Kerr’s Pink. The emphasis then switched to breeding for the export market, with the focus on the UK and Mediterranean markets. Since then the breeding programme has been focused on the domestic, processing and export markets. The process of breeding, testing and multiplying a new potato variety from the making of the initial cross until the new variety can be commercially grown takes about 15 years (see Appendix 2). The objectives of the present Potato Breeding Programme are: 1. Breeding improved varieties for the seed export trade. 2. Developing high yielding early maincrop and maincrop types with resistance to potato cyst eelworm Globodera rostochiensis and or Globodera pallidae with quality suitable for the UK market. 3. Developing a high dry-matter red skinned early maincrop or maincrop variety suitable for the home ware trade with a high level of disease resistance especially to late blight. 4. To select early maincrop or maincrop types suitable for processing into crisps and chips. 5. Breeding 1st and 2nd early varieties suitable for Irish and UK conditions with improved quality and disease resistance.