ARS | Publication request: Solanum Sect. Petota in Costa Rica; Taxonomy and Genetic Resources

Submitted to: American Journal of Potato Research
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: April 17, 2000
Publication Date: N/A

Interpretive Summary: There are over 200 wild potato species distributed from the southeastern United States to southern Chile. These wild potato species have tremendous proven and potential use as breeding stock for the world's commercial potato crop, but there are few wild species collections available from some countries. This paper reports new collections of the wild potato species from Costa Rica. Ten new living collections were made, considerable increasing the two preexisting collections from Costa Rica. The collecting expedition additionally gathered data needed to resolve a long standing question of the identity of these wild potatoes from Costa Rica. The results now support all wild potato species in Costa Rica by the technical name Solanum longiconicum. The new germplasm has potential use to impart new economically important traits to cultivated potatoes, and the new taxonomic knowledge is useful to better classify and organize our collections of wild potatoes in genebanks.

Technical Abstract: Costa Rica had only two germplasm collections of wild potatoes worldwide, and therefore formed a priority for collecting. We mapped all localities of wild potatoes from herbarium specimen data from Costa Rica and collected throughout the country. We made 13 collections, 10 of these with mature fruits. These collections considerably extend the numbers and geographic range of the germplasm available from Costa Rica. The identity of wild potatoes (Solanum sect. Petota) in Costa Rica was unresolved, and our fieldwork supports all populations of these as S. longiconicum.