Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting

Brief summary of minutes of annual meeting: Greg Porter reported that our most recent Potato Special Grant for the Northeast was funded, for about $260,000. Once again leveraging our Multistate Hatch funding. Porter also noted that McCain Foods continues to actively participate in testing of advanced French fry clones from Maine breeding program. Dave Lambert (U Maine) is currently screening for pink rot resistance, as well as symptom expression upon infection with bacterial ring rot, and encourages breeders in Northeast to submit clones for evaluation. Xinshun Qu presented overview of this years testing in PA for resistance to late blight, early blight, powdery scab, and common scab. Kathy Haynes described ongoing work to develop potatoes with increased carotenoid levels. Walter De Jong reported that the SolCAP project has now developed a publicly-available chip to simultaneously interrogate 8303 SNP markers, which should markedly simplify future trait mapping and marker-assisted breeding in potato. NY has released two new chipping potato cultivars  Waneta (tested in NE1031 as NY138) and Lamoka (tested in NE1031 as NY139). Extensive discussion about agronomic performance of potato clones evaluated across the Northeast ensued, with feedback guiding breeder decisions about which clones to keep evaluating, and which clones to drop. To increase visibility of the NE1031 project, and encourage more regional growers to participate in the meeting, the next NE1031 meeting will be held at the same time/venue as the national Potato Expo (January 2012 in Florida). Accomplishments: This project seeks, through activities coordinated across many Northeastern States, to develop potato varieties with improved agronomic, disease-resistance, and nutritional characteristics. It is anticipated that improved potato cultivars will help maintain the viability of rural economies, reduce dependence on pesticides, and contribute substantially toward maintaining a secure, safe and nutritious food supply. Two new chipping cultivars (Waneta and Lamoka) just released by the NY program exemplify how this works in practice. Extensive testing throughout the Northeast revealed that these two clones are widely adapted  a crucially important trait that can only be assessed through regional testing. Both were found to have chip color comparable to or better than the current industry standard, Snowden. Testing throughout the Northeast also revealed that both clones have moderate to good resistance to common scab (better than Snowden, which is susceptible). Both are also resistant to golden nematode (Snowden again susceptible). Industry interest in Waneta and Lamoka is high, and seed acreage (about 40 acres for both in 2010) is not yet high enough to meet demand. Project milestones for 2010, and progress related to each of these, follow: 1. QTLs associated with resistance to internal heat necrosis, yield, specific gravity, earliness and chipping ability as feasible in IHN mapping population. A paper reporting on QTL mapping of loci that influence susceptibility to internal heat necrosis has now been published (McCord et al 2010). IHN is a serious problem for southern growers  and this publication is the first to analyze the molecular genetics of this trait in depth. 2. Late blight resistance of 4x-2x breeding populations identified and transferred into adapted S. tuberosum germplasm, and stable late blight resistant germplasm identified. Crosses to transfer the resistance have been made; initial phenotypic evaluations will take place in 2012. 3. Crosses among S. raphanifolium lines that chip directly from long-term cold storage and S. tuberosum made and evaluated for adaptation in NY and ME. For the past several years NY has been selecting progeny from crosses that have S. raphanifolium in their background. No progeny are yet well-adapted to the region, thus further backcrossing is ongoing. 4. Research to develop molecular markers to expedite the development of scab resistant and/or early maturing, early blight resistant germplasm and varieties commenced. The solCAP project, on which De Jong is a co-PI, has developed an 8303-marker SNP chip to simplify mapping all traits in potato. The SNP chip is currently being used to map many traits in NY germplasm, including resistance to common scab, resistance to race Ro2 of the golden cyst nematode, maturity, and processing traits (chip color, specific gravity). 5. Improved nematode and insect resistant germplasm identified and crosses with advanced S. tuberosum breeding lines to develop varieties with resistance to GN and/or improved resistance to CPB and PLH made (ongoing activity). Almost all crosses made in NY involve at least one GN-resistant parent. Indeed, the two chipping varieties released by NY this year are both resistant to GN. Crosses with S. berthaultii trichome-mediated resistance to insects continue at Cornell; to date these have provided good resistance to potato leafhoppers. Short-term Outcomes: Potatoes can cost more than $2500 per acre to produce and devastating diseases such as pink rot and/or late blight can totally destroy the crop. Resistant varieties greatly decrease the risk of such 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. The eastern potato breeding and selection effort produces new varieties and evaluates their potential to serve fresh, processing, and specialty markets in the East. Adoption and seed multiplication take considerable time in the potato industry, so impacts occur over a long time period. Recent eastern releases since 2002 (e.g. Marcy, Monticello, Harley Blackwell, Red Maria, Lehigh, and Peter Wilcox) were grown on 452 seed acres during 2010 with a seed value of $1,200,000. The resulting seed crop has the potential to plant 4500 acres in 2011 with a ware value conservatively estimated at $9M. Over a longer time frame, 26 of the 100 varieties listed in the ME certified potato directory were released by the Eastern programs since 1990. These releases represent 1754 seed acres with a seed value of $4.6M. This seed crop has the potential to plant 18,000 acres in 2011 with a conservatively projected value of $35,000,000 Rural communities benefit from the release of new varieties because these varieties can improve yields, marketing opportunities, and pest resistance relative to standard varieties. Local, direct marketing outlets rely on high quality, specialty varieties such as Peter Wilcox and Lehigh, which are recent releases of this project. Growers cannot access larger-scale processing and fresh markets unless they are able to meet the stringent quality control requirements of these markets. Traditional varieties are increasingly deficient in these quality attributes and this puts eastern growers at a disadvantage unless new, well adapted varieties are developed and made available. The NE1031 project strives to develop new potato varieties which meet the needs of these growers. Pest resistant varieties allow potatoes to be grown where there otherwise could not be grown (e.g. golden nematode resistance is required for production in portions of NY) and/or provide growers with the opportunity to reduce pesticide applications (e.g. late blight resistance). Late blight resistance can improve grower profits, reduce the risk of catastrophic crop losses, and reduce the pesticide load on the agricultural system. All three can be beneficial to rural communities.

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