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  • From: "Lon J. Rombough" <lonrom@hevanet.com>
  • To: Gardenwriters on Gardening <gwl-g@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [gwl-g] FW: Wild Plant's Gene May Protect Potato Crop
  • Date: Mon, 09 Aug 2004 11:47:19 -0700

This is somewhat old news, but it's still good to know because even home
growers need varieties with good resistance. All of this work was done by
traditional plant breeding, not genetic engineering.

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From: ARS News Service <NewsService@ars.usda.gov>
Reply-To: ARS News Service <NewsService@ars.usda.gov>
Date: Mon, 09 Aug 2004 11:33:01 -0400
To: ARS News subscriber <lonrom@hevanet.com>
Subject: Wild Plant's Gene May Protect Potato Crop

STORY LEAD
Wild Potato's Gene May Protect Vulnerable Spuds
___________________________________________

ARS News Service
Agricultural Research Service, USDA
Marcia Wood, (301) 504-1662, MarciaWood@ars.usda.gov
August 9, 2004
___________________________________________

America's favorite veggie--the potato--sometimes falls victim to its worst
enemy, a disease called late blight. But Agricultural Research Service
scientists have found a promising gene that might help.

Isolated from a wild Mexican potato, Solanum bulbocastanum, the novel Sbul1
gene may work in concert with other genes to boost the ability of popular,
domesticated S. tuberosum tubers to shrug off attacks by the fungus-like
microbe, Phytophthora infestans, that causes late blight.

A team led by ARS plant physiologist William R. Belknap at the Western
Regional Research Center at Albany, Calif., identified the Sbul1 gene,
following earlier research by John P. Helgeson, formerly with ARS at
Madison, Wis.

Helgeson had fused S. bulbocastanum with S. tuberosum potatoes. Then, ARS
researchers at Aberdeen, Idaho, used samples of these potatoes to develop
new, experimental tubers that they provided to Belknap.

Each time they crossed, or "hybridized," the Wisconsin potatoes with other
tubers, the Idaho team lessened the amount of genetic material from the wild
potato--narrowing the California team's search for the resistance gene.

At Albany, researchers isolated and copied the Sbul1 gene from one of the
Aberdeen potatoes, then moved the gene into domesticated potatoes for tests
in the specialized greenhouses of ARS plant pathologist Kenneth L. Deahl in
Beltsville, Md.

The California group also determined the blueprint, or structure, of the
Sbul1 gene and pinned down its location within the wild potato's genome.

Deahl's greenhouse tests of the Sbul1-enhanced tubers are being succeeded by
outdoor trials in the Midwest.

Read more about the research in the August issue of Agricultural Research
magazine, available online at:
http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/AR/archive/aug04/potato0804.htm

ARS is the U.S. Department of Agriculture's chief scientific research
agency.
___________________________________________

* This is one of the news reports that ARS Information distributes to
subscribers on weekdays.
* Start, stop or change an e-mail subscription at
www.ars.usda.gov/is/pr/subscribe.htm
* NewsService@ars.usda.gov | www.ars.usda.gov/news
* Phone (301) 504-1638 | fax (301) 504-1648








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