Issue(s) and Justification:

 Needs as indicated by stakeholders – Potato growers and industry stakeholders consistently rank new high quality improved varieties for a wide range of fresh and processing markets as one of their greatest needs. New varieties are needed to meet continually changing environmental stresses, disease and insect damage, and evolving consumer demands. In this long-term project, stakeholders have always played a key role in defining the objectives of our potato breeding and variety development efforts. Indeed, potato variety development is impossible without active interaction between researchers, extension, and stakeholders. Our project is highly engaged with the U.S. potato industry and all eastern potato breeding programs utilize direct input from growers, processors, and industry groups (e.g., Potatoes USA, grower associations, processors, consumer groups, etc.) to guide research priorities and variety release. Our broad stakeholder support is significantly enhanced by our participation in Potatoes USA SNAC chipping trials, national chip (NCPT) and fry processing (NFPT) trials, as well as several USDA-NIFA-SCRI-funded projects, each of which have annual project meetings that bring researchers and industry stakeholders together in a structured format to share recent results, review progress and discuss ongoing short- and long-term industry needs, all of which results in a sense of shared purpose and responsibility. Growers in each state are introduced to new clones and varieties through various mechanisms such as presentations at extension and industry-sponsored meetings, research meetings, field days, demonstration trials, and web sites such as our searchable and quite popular project web site at (https://neproject.medius.re/). The final decision for recommending and releasing a new variety is based on grower and industry input.

Based on stakeholder input, several market needs, including for tablestock reds and whites, chipping-, and russet-types need to be addressed simultaneously by the eastern potato breeding programs. New red-skinned and specialty varieties are in high demand, and a premium-priced market exists for them. Novelty varieties (e.g., fingerlings, purple-skinned, and multi-colored-flesh types) are growing in popularity in the high-value, direct-sale market. Better-adapted novelty varieties would offer new marketing opportunities, especially for small-scale growers that specialize in direct sales to consumers. New varieties containing multiple resistances to insects, pathogens and stress would provide better performance without chemical inputs in the organic industry.

Two distinct marketing opportunities exist for chip potatoes in the Eastern region. Potato producers from the southern areas (e.g. FL, NC, VA, MD, NJ, and southeastern PA) sell their processing potatoes to chip factories directly following harvest. The variety requirements for these regions stress earliness, chip quality from the field, high tuber dry matter content, and tolerance to high temperatures during bulking. The cultivar Atlantic has dominated commercial production in these areas for many years; however, it is very susceptible to internal heat necrosis (IHN), a serious quality defect throughout many of the Eastern-coastal and Southeastern states.    Potatoes USA has made developing an improved potato variety to replace Atlantic a top priority.

Contrasted with the south, processing growers from the northern states (PA, NY, and ME) store most of their crop before it is sold. These growers need high yielding, high specific gravity varieties with low defect levels and the ability to process into chips or fries from long-term cold storage. Snowden has been the standard storage chipping variety in northern regions for about 25 years; however, NY’s Lamoka cultivar is now the top storage chipping variety in the US.  Snowden’s long-term success is due to its combination high yield potential and specific gravity with reliable chip color through mid-term storage; however, it has weaknesses (e.g., scab susceptibility, stem and vascular defects, taste panel concerns, and poor chip quality from long-term storage). The national potato industry continues to place developing an improved potato variety to replace Snowden (and now Lamoka) as a top priority.

Most of the russet- and French fry-type varieties developed in the western and mid-western states are poorly adapted to the East, as is the standard variety, Russet Burbank. A major goal is to develop russet varieties with high yield, improved disease resistance, uniform long tuber shape, high specific gravity, low internal and external defects, and acceptable fry color under Eastern growing conditions. This is critical for Maine’s French fry markets and could allow expansion of French fry processing into other Eastern states.  Due to production problems (e.g. yield consistency, external tuber defects, and disease susceptibility) and recent concerns about acrylamide levels in fries that are processed from Russet Burbank, the major French fry processors and the national potato industry has been increasingly searching for new varieties to replace Russet Burbank.  While Caribou Russet, a 2015 ME release, has been highly successful, our industry still needs new russet varieties with greater pest tolerance, longer storage potential, and better adaptation to the wide range of Eastern environments.

In all market sectors, disease- and insect-resistance that provide economical and environmentally sound alternatives to pesticide use are needed for the Eastern potato production system. Foliar fungicide applications for control of late blight (Phytophthora infestans) and early blight (Alternaria solani) account for approximately 80% of the pesticide active ingredient applied to Eastern potatoes during a typical growing season. These applications are costly to growers and may result in chronic environmental degradation and/or health problems for agricultural workers. Potato virus Y (PVY) has become more difficult to manage as new recombinant strains have been introduced from other production areas. Likewise, new challenges have developed in managing bacterial soft rot (Pectobacterium and Dickeya spp.) throughout the eastern region.  Golden nematode (Globodera rostochiensis) is highly destructive to the potato crop and its spread is controlled by quarantine regulations.  Once it becomes established in a production area (e.g. parts of NY, Canada, and Europe), potato production is impossible without varietal resistance.

Importance of work - This multidisciplinary regional research project helps potato growers at all scales supply high quality, highly nutritional products to consumers, while maintaining economically and environmentally sustainable production practices.  Specifically, we will provide farmers new potato varieties to solve production problems and meet consumers’ changing needs. These varieties will have improved yields, enhanced fresh market, processing or value-added traits, and better pest resistance resulting in reduced chemical inputs.

Potato ranks among the top three vegetable crops produced in FL, ME, NC, NY, OH, PA, and VA (USDA NASS 2020), while ME and NY maintain high-quality seed potato industries that supply much of the seed for eastern U.S. market needs. Cash farm receipts for eastern potatoes are approximately $500M annually (USDA NASS 2020) and multiplier effects in the state economies are many times this amount. Production occurs under a wide range of environmental conditions, ranging from the winter crop in southern FL, out-of-field marketed summer chipping and fresh market crops throughout the region to the fall storage crops of ME, NY, and PA. This creates diverse variety needs. Fresh market production remains a significant part of the industry (e.g. 20, 20, 25, 50, 60% of ME, FL, NC, OH, PA’s crops, respectively); even so, 43% of U.S. chip production occurs in the east (USDA NASS 2020). Processing, primarily for French fries, accounts for 60% of ME utilization (USDA NASS 2020). Markets range from high value, direct sales of specialty varieties to contracting with large, international processing companies. This span of conditions creates a tremendous diversity in variety needs and research aiding the Eastern potato industry impacts markets associated with over half of the US population.

The NE1731 project and its predecessors have a solid track record in producing new potato varieties that have been commercially accepted. As examples, the following recent releases from the eastern breeding programs were in the top 100 list of US certified seed production for 2020: Lamoka, Waneta, Caribou Russet, Lady Liberty, Lehigh, Reba, Hamlin Russet, Eva, Keuka Gold, Brodie, Andover, Pike, and Upstate Abundance.  Though adopted on a smaller scale, specialty varieties (e.g. Adirondack Blue, Adirondack Red, Peter Wilcox, Pinto Gold, and Strawberry Paw) provide very high net returns for small-scale growers with direct sales to consumers. We propose to continue our regional collaborative efforts to breed, select, and develop improved potato varieties to enhance marketing opportunities and reduce farm dependence on costly agricultural chemicals.

Technical feasibility of the research.

We propose to use well-established breeding, evaluation and extension techniques to develop and facilitate the adoption of new, improved potato varieties.  We already have a long track record of successful, stakeholder-driven research programs, and a fully-developed multisite regional trial network, and we expect to continue developing successful new potato varieties over the next five years. We have also added DNA-based markers to our selection efforts and are working to integrate new genomic selection models to enhance our research efforts.

We anticipate that the objectives for the revised project would be similar to our current NE1731 project objectives:

1) Conduct multidisciplinary conventional and molecular marker-assisted breeding, germplasm enhancement, and early-generation selection research to improve potato productivity and quality for important Eastern U.S. markets.

2) Use novel and improved potato germplasm to reduce the impact of economically important potato pests and abiotic stress in the Eastern US.

3) Evaluate yield, quality, and pest and abiotic stress resistances of preliminary and advanced potato breeding lines in experimental- and commercial-scale trials at multiple Eastern locations to aid industry adoption of new varieties.

4) Provide timely and relevant information to stakeholders through various means including the maintenance of a project website and a web-based potato variety performance database for use by researchers, extension, potato growers, and allied industry members.

The objectives and activities of related projects, such as USDA's Sturgeon Bay, WI potato germplasm collection program (introduction, preservation, distribution, and evaluation of Solanum species), NCCC-215 (potato genetics), and WRCC-27 (potato variety development) are complementary to this project. NE-1731 interacts with these projects through exchange of promising germplasm and research results. There is a need for good communication between regions to take advantage of widely-adapted germplasm.

Advances in potato genomics, reduced next generation sequencing costs, and the development of quantitative genetic algorithms specific for polyploids have recently come together to make the use of genomic selection (GS) more feasible in potato.  GS enables breeders to select earlier in the breeding cycle, while more precisely estimating the potential breeding value of parents. Hence, GS can shorten the breeding cycle and accelerate genetic gain (Cobb et al., 2019). This predictive ability helps breeders make better crosses that have the potential to yield a greater frequency of favorable progeny for a given trait. GS can also improve efficiency by enabling breeders to advance clones for further evaluation based solely on their composite genotype at a large number of loci at an earlier stage in the breeding process, i.e. by genotyping a large number of early-generation clones (at a lower relative cost) prior to evaluation of a smaller number of clones in the field in more detail (at a higher relative cost). Our breeding programs are in the process of integrating GS into our research programs and this process will likely improve efficiency over the coming years.

Advantages of a collaborative, multistate research project - This project addresses the needs of the Eastern potato industry (small- and large-scale growers, marketers, processors) through a collaborative process of potato breeding, selection, evaluation, and variety release. It is a highly collaborative project involving seven states and five breeding programs.  Our project’s overall goal is to develop high-yielding, disease-resistant, and stress-tolerant potato varieties for fresh market, specialty, and processing markets.  This effort is aimed at enhancing farmers’ ability to provide a safe and nutritious supply of potatoes to consumers in an environmentally sustainable manner that enhances profits and rural America.  Within this context, it is important to recognize that the Eastern US region is not only linked geographically, but is also closely linked through potato seed sales (from northern production areas), production (north and south), and product marketing (north and south). Thus, regional communication among scientists, farmers and industry members is a critical aspect of variety development.

Our project design encourages collaboration, pooling of regional resources. Hybridization and selection are conducted within the region’s five breeding programs (FL, ME, NC, NY, USDA-ARS). Potato germplasm is exchanged throughout the region as well as nationally.  This allows us to gain benefit from plant materials that would not occur if each program worked independently. The major potato breeding programs and seed potato production areas are largely located in the North (NY and ME).  If early selection occurred only in the northern production areas, most of the genetic variation would be lost before the material entered trials in the SE (FL, NC, VA).  Early-generation selection of breeding materials under SE conditions improves the utilization of our breeding materials and increases the probability and speed of selecting new potato varieties that are adapted to the SE. Two to four selection cycles are conducted by each breeding program at their field sites; however, the diverse environments provided by regional cooperators are increasingly used to supplement the selection process via simultaneous early-generation selection in multiple environments.  This facilitates selection of both broadly and specifically-adapted plant materials for diverse eastern environments. 

As superior progeny are identified, they are evaluated for other traits under a wider range of environmental conditions. To accomplish this, selected clones are entered into the eastern regional potato variety trials to subject them to diverse growing conditions and learn more about their strengths and weaknesses, geographical adaptation, yield stability, and durability of pest and disease resistance.  The most promising lines are entered into commercial-scale demonstration trials to begin the final assessment for commercial potential. 

Importantly, the NE-1731 project has developed a uniform potato germplasm evaluation and selection system, which takes advantage of the diverse environmental and pest incidence conditions of the Eastern region.  All seed is produced at a single site in Maine, to eliminate the substantial impact of seed source on clone performance, and evaluation methods are standardized across the trial network.  Each year the project evaluates about 30 potato clones across the Northeast and compares performance to 11 existing varieties.  The 30 clones tested each year represent the very best advanced plant material from our breeding programs. The project also provides a mechanism for screening regional selections for specific characteristics at a single location (e.g., early blight and late blight resistance in PA; golden nematode resistance in NY; common scab and viruses in ME) and multiple locations (e.g., chip quality in ME, NY, OH, PA, NC, FL; internal heat necrosis resistance in NC, VA, FL, PA, NY). This collaborative evaluation system makes efficient use of scientific expertise available in the region, and results in more efficient release and adoption of new potato varieties than would occur without the project. Research results documenting the performance of our potato clones/lines/selections at each trial location is now available on our Variety Data Management (VDM) website (https://neproject.medius.re/). The analytical and search capabilities of the VDM site are superior to those of our previous database which, in turn, was a model for U.S. potato variety development programs.

Likely impacts of successfully completing the work.

Our new varieties have had significant positive impacts on local and national potato growers, processors, and consumers.  Nationally, varieties produced by our long-term project were grown on 7316 seed acres during 2020 with an approximate seed value of $26M and potential ware production value of $220M.  New potato variety adoption in the U.S. comes from many different sources; nevertheless, five of the top 20 recently introduced varieties in the U.S. were developed as part of our collective eastern efforts.

Building on our successful track record, this regional potato breeding and trial network proposes to continue producing new potato varieties for the fresh, processing, and specialty potato markets in the East.  These new varieties will improve grower profitability by increasing yields, enhancing market quality, and/or decreasing costs associated with pests or climatic stress. In terms of potential economic impacts, farm gate receipts for eastern potato production exceed $500M annually, therefore the impact of a successful new potato cultivar can mean many millions of dollars to the industry over time. Potatoes can cost more than $3000 per acre to produce and devastating diseases such as soft rot, pink rot and/or late blight can totally destroy the crop.  Resistant varieties greatly decrease the risk of losses and, in the case of late blight resistance, can reduce production costs by reducing the number of chemical sprays applied to protect the crop from the pest.  Similarly, new stress-tolerant varieties can reduce losses due to climate change induced stresses (heat, drought, flooding, etc).

NE-1731 productivity extends to research, as well, as our scientists publish peer-reviewed articles in scientific journals, develop new management practices, and create disease/pest resistant potato germplasm that is utilized as parental material throughout North America.  Each year the NE-1731 team also leverages regional funding to attract additional funding from the federal government and potato industry.  In 2021, NE-1731 scientists shared $510,104 in funding via the potato special grant (administered by USDA-NIFA), and attracted an additional $373,739 from industry stakeholders.

Some example outcomes that are expected for the next five-year period:

1. New potato varieties with improved disease and insect resistance, improved processing or fresh market characteristics, and enhanced nutritional quality will be released, providing growers with better marketing opportunities and/or improved resistance to pests.


2. Adoption of new, high quality, pest resistant varieties will occur, leading to increased profitability, greater worker safety, and reduced pesticide load in the environment and diet.


3. Our multi-site evaluation and selection process will result in the release of new, broadly adapted potato varieties that will be stress tolerant and suitable for use in a changing climate.


4. DNA-based markers for disease resistance and genomic selection tools for complex traits will be increasingly important in our breeding efforts and will result in improved selection efficiency.


5. Web-based and traditional conduits for the distribution of timely and readily available potato variety production information to growers, processors, and consumers will be further strengthened.