Genetic bases of tomato and sweet pepper marker-assisted selection in Belarus

Abstract

Molecular markers are important and valuable tools in crop breeding programmes to help in the discovery and manipulation of important genes governing resistance reaction. In potato, several biotic stresses hamper quantity and quality of tuber production. Availability of molecular markers and high throughput screening method provide an excellent opportunity to practice marker assisted selection for potato improvement without waiting for phenotypic screening. In this study, we developed 20 KASP markers related to late blight, PVY and PCN resistance traits to facilitate the screening at earlier stages of potato breeding programmes. Out of these 20 markers, nine KASP assays were validated and associated with the phenotype data on respective traits for reliability in their wider application. The validation was done in a panel of 1447 potato germplasm accessions including varieties from diverse provenience and advanced breeding clones. Among traits, the best association found related to KASP markers for late blight, namely markers snp ST00106, snp ST00020 and snp ST00023. Overall, the allele calls were conclusive for all the nine markers, and the results demonstrate the usefulness of SNP KASP markers in high throughput cost effective marker assisted selection (MAS) for important biotic stress traits in potatoes.