Potato genetic resources: Sources of resistance and systematics

The major potato of commerce,Solanum tuberosum L., is the fourth most important food crop in the world after rice, wheat and corn. Fortunately, the potato has many primitive cultivars and wild species relatives useful to reduce our reliance on chemical controls. These include resistances against diseases, pests, and traits for useful agronomic characters such as yield, specific gravity, chipping qualities, and suppression of enzymatic browning. This paper summarizes some of these qualities, and provides an overview of germplasm availability and taxonomy of the wild species. The major potato of commerce,Solanum tuberosum L., is the fourth most important food crop in the world after rice, wheat and maize. It is grown in more countries than any other crop but maize, and forms the staple crop of many societies. Over 280 million metric tons were grown worldwide in 1989, with Eastern Europe growing 46%, Asia 22%, Western Europe 17%, North America 7%, Latin America 5%, and Africa 3% (2). It is the leading vegetable crop in acreage and farm value in the United States, with 1.2 million acres planted in 1991, with a value of sales almost two and one-half billion dollars (53).Solanum tuberosum is one species of a group of seven cultivated and 216 additional tuber-bearing, and nine non-tuber-bearing wild relatives, all classified by Hawkes (41) in the genusSolanum, sectionPetota Dumort The purposes of this paper are threefold: 1) to provide examples of the proven and potential utility of wild and cultivated landrace members of sect.Petota for reducing our reliance on chemical controls for many pests and diseases that affect commercial cultivars, 2) to provide an overview of the status of germplasm availability of these species, and 3) to highlight the benefits for continuing germplasm collections and systematic studies of the group.