ARS | Publication request: Allocation of experimental resources to minimize the variance of genotype mean chip color and tuber composition

Submitted to: Crop Science
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: August 11, 2011
Publication Date: December 8, 2011
Citation: Mccann, L.C., Bethke, P.C., Casler, M.D., Simon, P.W. 2011. Allocation of experimental resources to minimize the variance of genotype mean chip color and tuber composition. Crop Science. 52(4):1475-1481.

Interpretive Summary: Developing superior crop varieties requires identification of superior plants. Plant breeders need to select exceptional plants despite the complications caused by variation in environmental conditions such as temperature, rainfall, disease incidence, pests, weeds, soil type, day length and nutrient availability. Data taken from tubers of cultivated potato, wild relatives of potato, and crosses between cultivated potato and wild species relatives were used to identify the most efficient way to breed to fried chip color and tuber composition. This information will assist plant breeders of vegetable crops to better design their breeding strategies. By structuring a breeding program to minimize calculated variability caused by plant-to-plant differences in key traits, plant breeders will be able to identify more efficiently superior lines of crops species. This in turn will make superior new varieties available to seed companies, vegetable growers and consumers.

Technical Abstract: Breeders select superior genotypes despite the environment affecting phenotypic variance. Minimal variance of genotype means facilitates the statistical identification of superior genotypes. The variance components calculated from three datasets describing tuber composition and fried chip color were used in hypothetical experiments to determine how experimental replication and sampling affected the variance of a genotype mean for tuber composition or chip color. Datasets contained data from Solanum tuberosum cv. Snowden, four S. tuberosum haploid x species hybrid clones from the USDA Potato Enhancement Laboratory, and randomly chosen genotypes that tuberized readily from S. berthaultii PI 473239, S. chacoense PIs 175443 and 472826, S. kurtzianum PI 473420, and S. pinnatisectum PI 347766 and thus represented the range of material that might be found at any time in a potato breeding program. Maximizing experimental replication over years and locations with limited sampling of individuals minimized variance of genotype means for the traits of chip color, tuber sugar concentrations, and tuber dry matter.