Scientists make breakthrough in blight-resistant Irish potatoes

[progressoid]

A farmer in her Irish potato garden in Kisoro. Late blight causes significant yield losses in Irish potato-growing areas of the country



The situation

In Uganda, about 300,000 smallholder households grow potatoes for their subsistence living and for income. Loss due to late blight can be up to 60 per cent in Uganda forcing farmers to spray fungicides often up to 15 times to protect their crops. This represents between 10-25 per cent of their revenue from potato.
Recently, a new population of the pathogen is sweeping through Uganda that appears to be more difficult for farmers to manage. Hence, the pressure on farmers to grow resistant varieties is escalating.

A few resistant varieties exist but they are not the preferred varieties that farmers and consumers want. Moreover these resistant varieties still rely on the use of fungicide. However, a scientific breakthrough in 2003 changed the prospect for obtaining durable resistance to late blight disease.

A resistance (R) gene was isolated from Solanum bulbocastanum, a wild relative of the potato found in Mexico, and shown to confer resistance to a broad spectrum of pathogen strains. Soon after the discovery more R genes were isolated paving the way to obtain durable resistance to late blight in potato using biotechnology. Today we use genetic engineering, transgenesis, more commonly known genetic modification (GM), to introduce three R genes with broad spectrum resistance from wild relatives of the potato into potato varieties preferred by farmers and consumers alike.

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National Agricultural Research Organisation (Naro) is in the process of breeding Irish Potato varieties that are resistant to late blight, a fungal disease ravaging the crop in farmers’ fields across the country.
Via transgenic technology, two varieties are being studied by scientists at Naro’s Kachwekano Zonal Agricultural Research and Development Institute (KZARDI), which is located in Kabale.
The varieties being tested are commonly grown in the country, namely Victoria from Uganda and Désirée from Kenya.

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Genes for resistance against late blight were introduced into the varieties in the laboratory at International Potato Centre (CIP), which is based in Lima, Peru. The genes were obtained from the wild relatives of the Irish Potato from South America—Solanum bulbocastanum and Solanum venturii. Potato tubers, which were planted at the Institute, were obtained by KZARDI from Peru through African Agricultural Technology Foundation.

http://www.monitor.co.ug/Magazines/Farming/Scientists-make-breakthrough-in-blight-resistant-Irish-potatoes/-/689860/3068836/-/13r526cz/-/index.html

[Galileo126]

1. Interesting, but just do what the Peruvians do...

Cultivate 1,000 species of potato. That way, if one species gets a blight, you have 999 varieties left.

(So says an American with only 8 types of potato in the local grocery store. Fracking mono-cultures...)

[progressoid]

2. Eight types?

That's an improvement. When I was a teenager (a few decades ago), the grocery store where I worked, carried two types of potatoes - Russets and red.

[hunter]

3. That's true. Every community ought to have at least 8 local varieties of a particular crop...

... every region hundreds, and the world thousands.

Farmers growing whatever is best adapted to a place won't need to blast their crops with tons of fertilizer and pesticides, and if one particular crop falls to some blight or unusual weather condition, other crops will not.