Announcing Defense Seminar: William Behling

Accessing Crop Wild Relatives of Potato with a Focus on Solanum verrucosum and the 1EBN Species in the Tertiary Genepool

EMAIL LAUREN COLBY FOR ZOOM INFO

Members of the Examining Committee and their Department: 

  1. David S. Douches – Plant, Soil and Microbial Sciences 
  2. C. Robin Buell – University of Georgia, Crop and Soil Sciences 
  3. Jiming Jiang – Plant Biology 
  4. Addie M. Thompson – Plant, Soil and Microbial Sciences 

ABSTRACT  

ACCESSING CROP WILD RELATIVES OF POTATO WITH A FOCUS ON SOLANUM VERRUCOSUM AND THE 1EBN WILD SPECIES IN THE TERTIARY GENEPOOL

By William Behling

Potato, Solanum tuberosum L. group Tuberosum (2n=4x=48), remains one of the most important crops worldwide and plays an integral role in global food security. Due to challenges with tetraploid breeding, the past century of potato breeding has struggled to make significant genetic gains or utilize valuable crop wild relatives effectively. The recent movement towards diploid breeding methods to develop commercial potato varieties, aims to address these issues. Diploid breeding methods also offer new opportunities to leverage the immense potential of untapped genetic diversity in wild potato. However, the lack of broad self- and interspecific compatibility in diploid potato remains a substantial barrier to this effort. We characterized interspecific reproductive barriers which breeders are likely to encounter when using wild species in the genetic improvement of potato. The wild potato species S. verrucosum was selected for these experiments as it exhibits a desirable high level of self-compatibility and broad interspecific compatibility.

We first examined the validity and consistency of the Endosperm Balance Number (EBN) hypothesis. Two experiments were used to examine the accuracy of the EBN hypothesis to predict normal seed development in interspecific crosses. Eleven 1EBN species and three S. verrucosum clones were used to elucidate significant inter- and intraspecific variation for effective ploidy and regular seed development. The variation observed could not be predicted or characterized by the EBN hypothesis, thus questioning the value and application of this classification system.

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