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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Plant Sci.
Sec. Plant Breeding
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpls.2024.1505193

Variance and covariance components of agronomic and quality traits assessed in tetraploid potato and their implications on practical breeding

Provisionally accepted
Kathrin Thelen Kathrin Thelen 1,2Vanessa Prigge Vanessa Prigge 3Anja Kohlmorgen Anja Kohlmorgen 3Katja Muders Katja Muders 4Bernd Truberg Bernd Truberg 4Stefanie Hartje Stefanie Hartje 5Juliane Renner Juliane Renner 5Benjamin Stich Benjamin Stich 1,2*
  • 1 Institute for Breeding Research on Agricultural Crops, Federal Research Center for Cultivated Plants, Julius Kühn Institute, Sanitz, Germany
  • 2 Faculty of Agricultural- and Environmental Sciences, University of Rostock, Rostock, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany
  • 3 SaKa Pflanzenzucht GmbH & Co. KG, Windeby, Germany
  • 4 Nordring-Kartoffelzucht- und Vermehrungs-GmbH & Co. KG, Sanitz, Germany
  • 5 Böhm-Nordkartoffel Agrarproduktion GmbH &Co. OHG, Lüneburg, Germany

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Potato is a versatile food crop and major component of human nutrition worldwide. Model calculations and computer simulations can be used to optimize the resource allocation in potato breeding programs but require quantitative genetic parameters. The objectives of our study are to (i) estimate quantitative genetic parameters of the most important phenotypic traits in potato breeding programs, (ii) compare the importance of inter- vs. intra-population variance, (iii) quantify genotypic and phenotypic covariances among phenotypic traits, and (iv) examine the effect of a preselection in the single hills stage on variance and covariance components in later stages of the breeding program. Our study was based on a total of 1066 clones from three breeding programs which were evaluated in a non-orthogonal way in 15 environments for a total of 26 phenotypic traits. The examined traits showed an overall high to medium heritability, and variance analysis revealed trait-specific differences in the influence of the genotypic, environmental, and genotype-environment interaction effect. Accounting for heterogeneity in the residual variances between the 15 environments led to a significant improvement of the variance parameter estimation. The result of our study suggested that the first selection step at the single hills stage did not negatively impact the genetic variability of the target traits implying that the traits assessed in the earlier stages were not correlated with the traits influencing market success. Our results can be used as base for further simulation studies and, thus, help to optimize the resource allocation in breeding programs.

    Keywords: Breeding methodology, Heritabiity, Multi-environment trials, Preselection, Solanum tuberosrum, Variance Analysis

    Received: 02 Oct 2024; Accepted: 02 Dec 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Thelen, Prigge, Kohlmorgen, Muders, Truberg, Hartje, Renner and Stich. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Benjamin Stich, Institute for Breeding Research on Agricultural Crops, Federal Research Center for Cultivated Plants, Julius Kühn Institute, Sanitz, Germany

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.