An assessment of the fertiliser response and other characters of three dihaploid potatoes and the characteristics of their tetraploid progenies

Summary Three dihaploids, two tetraploid cultivars and an unnamed tetraploid potato were subjected to three fertiliser treatments in a glasshouse. One dihaploid (PDH135), as well as being high yielding, responded to fertiliser dosage in a similar way to the cultivars by increasing tuber yield with each increase in fertiliser. The other two dihaploids increased shoot growth rather than tuber yield.An evaluation of tetraploid offspring obtained from dihaploid × tetraploid crosses, showed that PDH135 had the highest-yielding progenies in field trials. Other characters of the dihaploids were efficiently transferred into their tetraploid offspring. The use of dihaploids and unreduced gametes in breeding cultivars with useful quantitative characters is discussed.