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Potato Cultivars from the Mexican National Program: Sources and Durability of Resistance Against Late Blight

First and sixth authors: Department of Plant Pathology, Cornell University, 334 Plant Science Building, Ithaca, NY 14853; second, third, and fourth authors: Instituto Nacional de Investigaciones Forestales, Agrícolas y Pecuarias (INIFAP), Conjunto Sedagro, Metepec, Edo. de México 52142, México; and fifth author: 2474 Camino Valle Verde, Tucson, AZ

The Mexican National Potato Program has produced several cultivars with high levels of field resistance. We evaluated the durability of resistance to potato late blight of a selection of 12 such cultivars using data from 1960 to the present. Data were extracted from the field notebooks located in the archives of the Mexican National Potato Program in the John S. Niederhauser Library in Toluca, Mexico. There was a trend indicating that field resistances to potato late blight of Mexican cultivars released between 1965 to 1999 were durable. At least two of the cultivars, namely ‘Sangema’ and ‘Tollocan’, have been grown on at least 4 to 5% of the potato acreage and over long periods of time without decay in levels of field resistance. Pedigrees of the 12 cultivars indicate that most of the field resistance was introgressed from Solanum demissum. Field resistance might also be derived from commonly grown land-race cultivars such as ‘Amarilla de Puebla’ and ‘Leona’. These have been grown in Mexico since about the 1780s. They have the appearance of S. andigena-derived material but their genetic background is unknown.

Additional keywords: breeding, germ plasm, Phytophthora infestans, S. tuberosum.