Using Genomic Variants to Predict Fry Color and Dry Matter in Potato

Like many countries, Ireland produces potatoes locally to satisfy its indigenous crisping industry. However, long term storage of potatoes for the crisping industry is a challenge. Potatoes destined for crisping are normally stored at 80C, below this glucose accumulates leading to very dark fry colours and potential acrylamide build up. Unfortunately, sprouting occurs above 80C and reduces the product quality. This demands the use of sprout suppressant chemicals such as chlorpropham. However, the EU is moving to phase out the use of such chemicals due to health concerns. Ideally we would be able to develop potatoes that can be stored below 80C without suffering from low temperature sweetening (LTS). Our goal is to use GS to predict phenotypes for processing quality at early stages in the breeding cycle, where phenotyping for this trait is not practical. We have started accumulating data to build up a genotyped and phenotyped population on which we can train models that enable us use genomic information to predict phenotypes. To date we have accumulated genotypes and phenotypes on 256 entries, and already can demonstrate, through cross-validation, that high predictive accuracies can be achieved for traits such as resistance to LTS.