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ARS Home » Midwest Area » Madison, Wisconsin » Vegetable Crops Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #381952
Research Project: Management of Genetic Resources and Associated Information in the U. S. Potato Genebank

Location: Vegetable Crops Research

Title: Similar cold hardiness of all Solanum jamesii tubers

Author
item Bamberg, John
item LOMBARD, KEVIN - NEW MEXICO STATE UNIVERSITY

Submitted to: American Journal of Potato Research
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 1/10/2022
Publication Date: 2/11/2022
Publication URL: https://handle.nal.usda.gov/10113/7668162
Citation: Bamberg, J.B., Lombard, K. 2022. Cold hardiness variations in Solanum jamesii and Solanum kurtzianum tubers. American Journal of Potato Research. 99:69-72. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12230-022-09862-7.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12230-022-09862-7

Interpretive Summary: Potato cultivars are propagated by tubers which are sensitive to damage by freezing. Potato has about 100 related wild related Solanum species that bear tubers growing naturally in the Americas. When we cooled tubers of a spectrum of these species, most were killed at a few degrees below zero. Only those of S. jamesii, native to the southwest USA, remained firm, sprouted and grew after one week as cold as -15C. We focused a follow-up study on detecting differences between S. jamesii populations, but found none. Tolerance of potato tubers to freezing could be useful in several ways. Even non-lethal cold exposure of potato tubers at harvest reduces quality for eating and for seed tubers for planting. On the other hand, tolerance to colder temperatures in tuber storage could help preserve dormancy and limit diseases. It appears that any S. jamesii population in the US Potato Genebank could be used for study and breeding for the trait.

Technical Abstract: Ability of potato tubers to tolerate cold temperatures could be useful for maintaining the quality of tuber seed used for growing the crop, preserving the crop in storage, and germplasm preservation. Previous work measured the limits of survival of tubers of numerous populations of the wild tuber-bearing potato species Solanum jamesii, native to the southwest USA in terms of ability to sprout after cold challenge. We identified nine populations that had previously shown the most susceptibility to cold, and nine very hardy populations, and generated and tested their tubers grown in the field and in the greenhouse. The results of this study were similar to previous ones: Challenge of tubers at -15C differentiated hardiness the most, and field tubers were more hardy than greenhouse tubers. But even a deliberate selection of populations previously noted as particularly susceptible to cold failed to detect significant differences for hardiness among populations. We conclude that tubers of S. jamesii populations available from the US Potato Genebank are all similarly cold hardy.