Periclinal Chimeral Status of New Brunswick ‘Russet Burbank’ Potato

Abstract

The widely grown and important ‘Russet Burbank’ potato has now been almost 100 years under cultivation. ‘Russet Burbank’, derived from ‘Burbank’, is described as the classic example of a periclinal chimeral cultivar that is (by definition) a stable entity. This research investigated the chimeral status of the New Brunswick (NB) clone of ‘Russet Burbank’. This was done through regeneration of somatic embryos from specific tuber tissues representing the three histogenic layers of the shoot meristem from microtubers and field tubers. Intraclones were evaluated for tuber periderm characteristics in two field seasons. Most intraclones had tubers with russet periderm regardless of tuber source tissues. The frequency of up to 4% for non-russet (wild-type) and up to 21% for patchy periderm suggests that one or more types of gene expression modification should be investigated for these phenotypic changes. Clearly, NB ‘Russet Burbank’ is not presently organized in a periclinal chimeral arrangement.