DEVELOPMENT OF ADAPTED POTATO VARIETIES FOR THE MID-ATLANTIC AND SOUTHEASTERN US

Potatoes are an important component of North Carolina's crop production system. During 2007-2012, potatoes accounted for roughly $102 million in farm-gate revenue, ranking 2nd for vegetables after sweetpotatoes. We are the nation's 3rd largest producer of spring potatoes averaging 16,000 acres per year and our growers fill an important niche in the eastern US potato production/ chip processing system. New varieties are one of the highest priorities for growers. 'Atlantic', the predominant chipping variety grown in NC was bred and selected in Maine. While it is a good variety for northern growers, in the mid-Atlantic and southern regions it suffers from internal heat necrosis (IHN), an internal tuber defect that occurs due to high temperatures. Severe IHN in a shipment of potatoes can result in an entire load of potatoes being rejected by processors, which occur yearly in NC. Therefore, there is great need to develop improved varieties free of IHN for the mid-Atlantic and southeastern US. Another concern of the industry is the need for high value specialty potatoes for production by small-scale growers who are primarily concerned with direct marketing their fresh market table stock potatoes.The primary goal of the NC State University potato breeding project is to identify new potato varieties for use in the mid-Atlantic and SE US. We use a multifaceted approach to develop new varieties because we have limited resources. As a USDA-NIFA NE1231 Regional Potato Variety Development Project member, we evaluate all advanced lines from potato breeding programs located in the NE US. Most major varieties, including Atlantic the dominant chipping variety in the, have passed through this system. This variety, which occupies ~50% of NC's acreage, generated over $22 million in NC farm-gate receipts during 2012. We have also developed early-generation selection projects with the USDA-ARS, Cornell University and the Univ. of Maine and we are a key player in collaborative early-generation potato selection trials supported by the US Potato Board (USPB) and the US Snack Food Association. This National Chip Processors Trial (NCPT) trialing system and is national in scope and the program is designed to identify and commercialize as rapidly as possible new potato varieties.To provide information on the potato varieties evaluated and/or developed by the program we have developed three online potato databases, which are on our project website at http://potatoes.ncsu.edu/. The NCSU Potato Database is populated with data collected on all lines trialed by our program since 1995. The NE1231 Potato Variety Development Project Database is a regional database with agronomic data from eight eastern US states and three Canadian provinces. While the NCPT Database contains all the data collected from at the 11 chip trial locations in the US. Each of these databases was created using an interface that allows users to dynamically generate one-page summaries of varieties in a printer friendly format. This web-resource is becoming increasingly popular, and is often used by potato growers seeking timely information on varieties.Through our collaborations with the potato breeding and seed production programs located throughout the US, we are developing new varieties better suited to our production conditions. Indeed, NC is recognized by our industry and scientific collaborators as a key site for the evaluation of potatoes in the southern US. Continued efforts to develop new potato clones will contribute to the development of a more economically and ecologically sustainable potato production system in the mid-Atlantic and SE US.