Abstract
Drought sensitivity of potato leads to a reduction in total tuber yield and marketable yield. An investigation of drought effects on tuber yield attributes will facilitate our understanding of how to reduce such huge yield losses. We have evaluated tuber yield, tuber size distribution and marketable yield of a set of 103 European commercial potato cultivars under irrigated and non-irrigated conditions in the field. The multi-year results from two locations, Connantre, France (2013–2015) and Nieuw-Namen in Zeeland, The Netherlands (2013–2014), were analysed. We used Normal and Gamma Distribution models to describe the tuber size distribution of tuber fresh weight and tuber number, respectively. The interactions among parameters of tuber size distribution and total/marketable tuber yield traits were analysed using correlation matrices and biplots. Finally, we used a 14K Infinium SNP marker array to find associations between the parameters or traits and genetic loci on the potato genome. Late foliage maturity facilitated a wider spread of tuber size distribution in favour of larger-sized tubers. Drought effects on total yield were representative of their impact on marketable yield, however, absolute values of total tuber number may not be indicative of marketable number of tubers. We found significant marker-trait associations between a region on chromosome 3 and the spread of tuber number distribution, size class with maximum tuber number and marketable fractions of tuber number and tuber weight. These findings will contribute to improvement and selection for drought tolerance in potato.
Highlights
Potato is a perennial plant that is cultivated today as an annual crop (Zarka et al 2009)
The foliage development and tuber yield at Zeeland, which is a coastal region of The Netherlands, were much less affected by drought than the Connantre trials, indicating that the trial in Zeeland only suffered minor water limitation stress
Under drought conditions in the Connantre 2015 trial we found significant association of a SNP marker with tuber number (TBN) spread, TBN ms, TBN mf and tuber fresh weight (TBW) mf at 0.05 significance threshold (Fig. 7), and with TBN mcs at 0.1 significance level (Supplementary Fig. SF1b)
Summary
Potato is a perennial plant that is cultivated today as an annual crop (Zarka et al 2009). It is grown for its underground storage organs, the tubers. Potato is consumed by more than a billion people globally, and more than 230 million tonnes is consumed yearly (Devaux et al 2014). It is recognized as a food security crop by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAOSTAT 2014). Potato yield under optimal conditions of growth is over 47 tonnes/ha (FAOSTAT 2014), even up to about 50–60 tonnes/ha in The Netherlands. Under sub-optimal conditions like water limitation, yield is drastically reduced (Trebejo and Midmore 1990)
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