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Independent Resistant Reactions Expressed in Root and Tuber of Potato Breeding Lines with Introgressed Resistance to Meloidogyne chitwoodi

First author: Research Geneticist and second author: Research Affiliate, United States Department of Agriculture--Agricultural Research Service, Prosser, WA 99350; and third author: Research Associate and fourth author: Assistant Professor and Extension Nematologist, Washington State University, Irrigated Agriculture Research and Extension Center, Prosser.

Resistance to Meloidogyne chitwoodi was introgressed from Solanum bulbocastanum into the cultivated gene pool of potato. A single dominant gene is responsible for resistance to race 1 reproduction on the root system. An additional form of resistance was discovered in certain advanced backcross clones. A BC₅ clone, PA99N82-4, resisted invasion of tubers by available nematode juveniles whether supplied by weeds or challenged by several root resistance-breaking pathotypes. This tuber resistance is inherited as a single dominant gene and is linked to R_Mc1(blb). Because this gene has been mapped to chromosome 11, tuber resistance genetic factors are inferred to be on the same chromosome in coupling phase. Among 153 progeny derived from crosses with PA99N82-4, 42 recombinants, comprising both resistant root/susceptible tuber and susceptible root/resistant tubers, were found while other progeny were doubly resistant (like PA99N82-4) or doubly susceptible. Therefore, the existence of two linked genetic factors controlling independently expressed traits is confirmed. The combination of the two phenotypes is likely to be a sufficient level of resistance to avoid tuber damage from circumstances that provide exogenous juveniles proximal to the tubers in the soil. These factors are weed hosts of M. chitwoodi host races and pathotypes of M. chitwoodi that overcome R_Mc1(blb). Under field conditions, where a resistance-breaking pathotype of M. chitwoodi was present, tuber-resistant PA99N82-4 breeding line produced tubers which were commercially acceptable and not culled. A related breeding line, root resistant but tuber susceptible, and Russet Burbank were severely tuber damaged and commercially unacceptable.

Additional keywords:Columbia root-knot nematode.