La búsqueda de resistencia al tizón tardío en papas silvestres

Abstract

Potatoes (Solanum tuberosum L.) are the most cultivated vegetables in the world. The main limiting factor worldwide is late blight, a disease caused by the oomycete Phytophthora infestans, causing up even total production losses. An important part of potato genetic improvement focuses on obtaining cultivars resistant to this disease. However, the pathogen can produce offspring from sexual reproduction, generating new strains that are more virulent, resistant to fungicides and that allow it to overcome genetic resistance in new cultivars. For a long time, the vertical resistance genes of Solanum demissum were used to obtain resistant varieties, but their success have been limited by being race-specific and of short-term duration. Currently there is an interest in horizontal or quantitative resistance genes of various wild species of Solanum, which are difficult to introduce due to ploidy incompatibility and to the Endosperm Balance Number (EBN). Nevertheless, techniques like somatic hybridization, allele mining and marker-assisted breeding have made possible to overcome those barriers. Hence the importance of exploring and identifying new resistance genes in wild species.