Biotech Crop Check

 

According to De Jong, the number of genes available to use as payload is increasing rapidly, as more genes are characterized and isolated in potato. “Perhaps the most interesting potato gene is from a wild potato species (Solanum bulbocastanum) that is resistant to late blight,” he says. While he doesn’t know how the new all-native potatoes will be received by consumers, De Jong does suspect that even if GM crops’ most strident opponents still won’t accept them, some consumers, once they know that the vegetables aren’t crossed with any foreign species, might warm up to the idea. 

De Jong also is working on a project called SolCAP (Solanaceae Coordinated Agricultural Project), funded by USDA. The goal of the project is to bring researchers from a wide variety of disciplines together to tackle larger agricultural problems. “SolCAP is working to develop a very large number of molecular markers that are useful for both applied potato as well as tomato breeding,” De Jong says.
As of mid-September, SolCAP had tested approximately 8,000 markers. “A big problem in developing markers that are useful for potato breeding is that potato has four copies of every chromosome, and that complicates the genetics a lot,” he explains. “Having 8,000 markers means even if you have to throw away a lot — which we will given the material — we’ll still have plenty to work with.”

De Jong is confident that biotech potato research and development will grow exponentially in the next decade. With the markers SolCAP has developed, along with the draft sequence of the potato genome released last year, potato geneticists and breeders are excited about the promise of using modern tools to identify genes that can be manipulated more efficiently. “I expect over the next five to 10 years, we’ll be able to discern a lot of relationships between markers and important traits in potato, like ability to make potato chips or french fries, or resistance to various diseases, which we’ve never been able to do before,” De Jong says.