Mutations in potatoes induced by gamma irradiation

The report deals with experiments in which gamma irradiation was applied to induce somatic mutations in potato clones. The best results are obtained when an irradiation dose of 3200 r is applied.Most of the aberrants recognized were colour mutations or leaf mutations. All these aberrants were inferior to the original clones when tested in yield trials.In the variety Pimpernel occurred a mutant with definitely shorter stolons than the original clone. Unfortunately this character was correlated with a great tendency of the tubers to cracking and the clone will not be released for commercial growing.The possibilities of using artificial induction of mutations in potato breeding are briefly discussed.