Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting

To view all reports from the 2013 NRSP-6 TAC meeting, please go to: http://www.ars-grin.gov/nr6/NRSP6_TAC_MINUTES_2013_FINAL_PACKAGE.pdf

Our annual report can be accessed far below at the Publication Attachment link. A. Acquisitions and associated work In 2012, the collecting and research activities in the southwest USA passed the 20-year milestone, and represented our most ambitious trip thus far. We accomplished each of six objectives: 1) Venue scouting for Hungry Film Inc., 2) Re-discover fendleri at Demlong 119 at Riggs Lake (Pinaleno Mts.) diversity hotspot, 3) Matryoshka fruit mutant re-collections 4) Fruit gall collecting 5) Patagonia and Canelo Mountains exploration (20 new germplasm accessions), 6) 20th anniversary reunion collecting and Hungry Film Inc. documentary shooting. USDA/ARS/Plant Exploration Office supplied $5K. A detailed trip report is available on request. We imported 11 elite breeding stocks from other countries. We conducted an expedition to Arizona to collect 20 wild populations (B4dRFS). The NRSP-6 web page (http://www.ars-grin.gov/nr6) was updated to include all new stocks and screening information. Clients who have ordered from NRSP-6 within the past four years were contacted three times in 2012, informing them of new stocks of true seed, tubers, in vitro plantlets, or herbarium samples. We used email and the website to extend technical instruction like transplanting techniques and use of nylon slipper socks for preparing samples. B. Preservation and Evaluation A total of 203 accessions were increased as botanical seed populations and 1818 clonally. About 1010 potato virus tests were performed on seed increase parents, seedlots and research materials. Germination tests were performed on 1131 accessions, ploidy determinations were made on 28 accessions, and tetrazolium seed viability tests were done on 26 seedlots. With help of cooperators, we made progress evaluating and improving germplasm on several ongoing projects. Over 2200 field plots at USPG, about 500 field plots in two sites in CA, and 4 large screenhouses at USPG full of stocks supporting screening for golden tuber flesh, antioxidants, folate, thiamine, tomatine, anti-obesity, forms in series LON, starch balance, % dry matter, anti-diabetes, allergenicity, tuber greening, K-reduction, Matryoshka fruit mutant, GA dwarfism, sessile tubers, taste, and floral volatiles. This year, the project to select orange-fleshed stocks from hybrids of S. phureja based on taste, appearance and cooking quality evaluated by a native Colombian (FL) familiar with the ideal for traditional papa criolla resulted in the first selections declared good enough for market by cooperator. With A. Goyer (OR), we screened all microdontum populations for folate, produced materials for fine screening and MAS breeding. Lack of folate is associated with a broad range of serious physical and mental diseases. The cooperative project with Kemin (IA) continued to make gains in 2012. Exotics were identified and hybridized that have over 6-fold the concentration of an anti-appetite compound of common cultivars. We selected some with very high levels and good tuber type. This addresses the US obesity epidemic, which is responsible for more than 1/5 of all healthcare-related costs. We expanded work on the Microdontum Multifaceted Project (MMP) by identifying 1741 informative AFLP loci for help in selecting a core collection. AFLP loci were treated as though they were traits, with the banded condition considered to be the desired state. At least one band unique to a population was present in 45 populations, and these 45 populations together captured 98% of all bands. Adding another 14 populations for a total of 59 captured all bands. This core set was assessed for whether it encompassed those populations known to have useful traits, including nutritional and quality components, as well as disease, stress and pest resistances. As with AFLP bands, all 25 of the most desirable phenotypic traits were also found in populations in the core set of 59 populations. These AFLP markers may also reveal the influence of eco-geo parameters, and introgression from other species. In hybrids of this same species, we confirmed extreme tuber greening resistance after illumination exhibits high heritability. Short day winter growouts in three places in California continue to be used to extend our evaluation capacity. This year, work with cooperators J. Palta (UW), International Potato Center, and the Peruvian national potato program resulted in selections from our cold hardiness breeding project with S. commersonii that were declared by local Puno farmers to be hardy and productive enough to be cultivars. It is hard to overestimate the importance of diabetes when one considers the recent rapid increase in diagnoses worldwide, the chronic nature of the disease, and how it exacerbates other major diseases of the kidneys, cardiovascular and nervous systems, and attendant amputations, and blindness. The ADA estimates diabetes at about 26m persons in the USA, and another 80m with prediabetes, for total annual healthcare costs at $174B. This year it was reported that potato cultivars contain significant levels of biguanides, the antigluconogenic compounds in Metformin. We have already produced and sent tubers of 25 representative wild species' tubers to cooperators at CSU in hopes of finding germplasm with high biguanide levels. C. Classification David Spooner's work related to NRSP6 this year included: 1) the use of plastid microsatellites to investigate cultivated potato diversity and origins, 2) a summary of the use of next-generation sequencing techniques for plants, 3) a genomics in-situ hybridization (GISH) analysis of polyploidy in North and Central American hexaploid potato species, 4) an analysis of resistance to potato wart disease (Synchytrium endobioticum) in cultivated potatoes, 5) a treatment of potato in an upcoming encyclopedia of genetics. D. Distribution service Distribution of germplasm is at the heart of our service. The volume and types of stocks sent to various consignee categories are summarized in the table on page 5 of our annual report (attached below under Publications). Total orders increased about 20% in 2012. NRSP-6 distributed 190 domestic orders to clients in 23 states of the USA and 22 foreign orders to 12 other countries. About ½ of domestic orders are for breeding and genetics, about ¼ for home gardeners, and the remaining ¼ for pathology, physiology, entomology, taxonomy, and education. In 2012 we maintained the popular offering of 100 cultivars as tubers by devising and implementing an iron-clad disease control and quarantine program for their production (full details available at our website).

NRSP6 and associated USDA/ARS project staff publications Bamberg, JB and JC Miller, Jr. Comparisons of ga1 with other reputed gibberellin mutants in potato. American Journal of Potato Research 89:142-149. Cai, D, F Rodriguez, Y Teng, C Ane, M Bonierbale, LA Mueller, and DM Spooner. Single copy nuclear gene analysis of polyploidy in wild potatoes (Solanum section Petota). Bmc Evolutionary Biology 12: del Rio, Alfonso H., JB Bamberg, Ruth Centeno Diaz, J. Soto, A. Salas, W. Roca and D. Tay. Pesticide contamination has little effect on the genetic diversity of potato species. American Journal of Potato Research 89:348-391. del Rio, Alfonso H., JB Bamberg, Ruth Centeno-Diaz, A. Salas, W. Roca and D. Tay. Effects of the pesticide Furadan on traits associated with reproduction of wild potato species. American Journal of Plant Sciences 3:1608-1612. Egan, A.N.,Schlueter, J.,Spooner, D.M. Applications of next-generation sequencing in plant biology. American Journal of Botany 99:175-185. Goyer, A., C Brown, R Knowles, L Knowles and JB Bamberg. Attacking the acrylamide dilemma by developing low sugar high carotenoid processing potatoes. Potato Progress (Washington State Potato Commission): 12(1):2-3. Haga, E.,Weber, B.,Jansky, S. Examination of potential measures of vine maturity in potato. American Journal of Plant Sciences 3:495-505. Jansky, S.,Hamernik, A.,Cai, X. Rapid cycling with true potato seed. Seed Science and Technology 40:43-50. Khiutti, A.,Afanasenko, O.,Antonova, O.,Shuvalov, O.,Novikova, L.,Krylova, E.,Chalaya, N.,Mironenko, N.,Spooner, D.M.,Gavrilenko, T. Characterization of resistance to Synchytrium endobioticum in cultivated potato accessions from the collection of Vavilov Institute of Plant Industry. Plant Breeding 131:744-750. Kittipadukal, P.,Bethke, P.C.,Jansky, S.H. The effect of photoperiod on tuberisation in cultivated and wild potato species hybrids. Potato Research 55:27-40. Pendinen, G.,Spooner, D.M.,Jiang, J.,Gavrilenko, T. Genomic in situ hybridization reveals both auto-and allopolyploid origins of different North and Central American hexaploid potato (Solanum sect. Petota) species. Genome 55:407-415. Spooner, D., Jansky, S., Clausen, A., del Rosario Herrera, M. ,Ghislain, M. The Enigma of Solanum maglia. In: the Origin of the Chilean Cultivated Potato, Solanum tuberosum Chilotanum Group(1). Economic Botany 66:12-21. Weber, B.N., Hamernik, A.J., Jansky, S.H. Hybridization barriers between diploid Solanum tuberosum and wild Solanum raphanifolium. Genetic Resources and Crop Evolution 59:1287-1293. Weber, B.N., Jansky, S.H. Resistance to Alternaria solani in hybrids between a Solanum tuberosum haploid and S. raphanifolium. Phytopathology 102:214-221.