Breeding and physiological aspects of potato cultivation in the Mediterranean region

Abstract

SummaryIn the Mediterranean area the potato is a very important crop and can be cultivated throughout the year. However, tuber yields are generally much lower than those in Northern European countries. This is because the environmental and agro-economic conditions are different from those of Northern countries where most cultivars were developed. We feel that the objective for the "new Mediterranean potato" must be the availability of potato cultivars for each environment and for each planting season. Breeding programmes should focus on improving potato production within a specific agro-ecologicai Mediterranean area rather than improving crop production across areas. This paper reports aspects of potato breeding and physiology related to resistance to stress conditions in the Mediterranean area, with particular emphasis given to resistance to abiotic (heat, drought and frost) as well as biotic stresses. We also discuss the potential to produce seed tubers suitable for potato cultivation in the Mediterranean area.

In vitro screening of potato lines for drought tolerance

“…Compared to other species, potato is sensitive to drought (Harris 1978;Van Loon 1981;Frusciante et al 1999;Hassanpanah et al 2008) because of its shallow root system (Iwama and Yamaguchi 2006). There are differences in potato cultivar susceptibility to drought (Steckel and Gray 1979;Levy 1983Levy , 1986Susnoschi and Shimshi 1985).…”

“…Screening for drought susceptibility is complicated. Frusciante et al (1999) used parameters correlated with drought tolerance, i.e., canopy expansion, canopy temperature, chlorophyll fluorescence, and leaf relative water content, appear very promising, especially if used in the first generations of clonal selection. Based on the relative values of shoot length, fresh and dry weight as well as root length, fresh and dry weight, Zhang and Donnelly (1997) screened in vitro genotypes of potato for salinity tolerance.…”

Assessment of morphophysiological traits for selection of heat-tolerant potato genotypes

“…The development of heat-tolerant potato varieties is one of the most feasible approaches to cope with global warming. Apart from the global warming, breeding heat-tolerant potato varieties is also very important to get high yields in Mediterranean-type environments due to supraoptimal temperatures during the growing period (Frusciante et al, 1999(Frusciante et al, , Çalışkan, 2001). In the last decades, potato breeding has concentrated on improving the yield of final product at lower production costs, reducing the use of chemicals in the field by enhancing resistance to pests and diseases, increasing cold hardiness of tubers, and extending postharvest storage duration.…”

Tuber yield and quality characteristics of potatoes for off-season crops in a Mediterranean environment

“…Ninfa (ex ISCI B26) is a new Italian variety for off-season crops, constituted within the Italian research project on 'Potato breeding', granted by the Ministry of Agriculture from 1997 to 2005, 17 with oblong, regular and very large tubers; it performed well in winter-spring crop and in organic farming. 18 The three genotypes have yellow skin.…”