Potatoes are eaten as a starch here in the United States and have developed a bad reputation as a poorly nutritive crop.
Posted: Mon May 09, 2022 2:08 pm
Potatoes are eaten as a starch here in the United States and
have developed a bad reputation as a poorly nutritive crop.
However, potatoes are a main food source in many parts of the world
and have a very high genetic diversity. Traditional potato
tubers do have starch but also have high protein content, as well
as high mineral and vitamin content. Breeders value many
characteristics in potato tubers including, size, starch content,
starch quality (which affects things like usefulness for potato
chips, fries, or for use in the home), protein content,
storability, and the conversion of starch to
sugar.
Researchers in the US use QTLs to determine heritability of some
of the above listed traits and to map those traits to loci in the
potato genome to identify genes that potentially regulate those
traits. The table below shows some phenotypic data for
potatoes in a breeding program. Each line represents the
cross of two parental plants from two different study
populations. The F1 represents the mean weight of the F1
generation from those parents.
Line
Tuber weight (g)
Tuber protein content (% dry weight)
Mean of parents
F1
Mean of parents
F1
1
375
360
11
13
2
332
324
13
12
3
400
410
15
17
4
429
434
12
13
5
392
387
12
14
6
467
492
14
16
7
436
438
11
11
8
409
415
13
13
9
388
379
16
16
have developed a bad reputation as a poorly nutritive crop.
However, potatoes are a main food source in many parts of the world
and have a very high genetic diversity. Traditional potato
tubers do have starch but also have high protein content, as well
as high mineral and vitamin content. Breeders value many
characteristics in potato tubers including, size, starch content,
starch quality (which affects things like usefulness for potato
chips, fries, or for use in the home), protein content,
storability, and the conversion of starch to
sugar.
Researchers in the US use QTLs to determine heritability of some
of the above listed traits and to map those traits to loci in the
potato genome to identify genes that potentially regulate those
traits. The table below shows some phenotypic data for
potatoes in a breeding program. Each line represents the
cross of two parental plants from two different study
populations. The F1 represents the mean weight of the F1
generation from those parents.
Line
Tuber weight (g)
Tuber protein content (% dry weight)
Mean of parents
F1
Mean of parents
F1
1
375
360
11
13
2
332
324
13
12
3
400
410
15
17
4
429
434
12
13
5
392
387
12
14
6
467
492
14
16
7
436
438
11
11
8
409
415
13
13
9
388
379
16
16