Location: Potato, Pulse and Small Grains Quality Research
Project Number: 3060-30600-003-000-D
Project Type: In-House Appropriated
Start Date: Nov 25, 2025
End Date: Nov 24, 2030
Objective:
Objective 1: Determine the molecular changes using systems biology approaches to identify regulatory genes, gene-networks and metabolic pathways responsible for rapid wound-healing responses, and dormancy duration of potato tubers during postharvest storage.
Sub-objective 1.A: Screening and identifying novel compounds for suppressing sprout growth of potato tubers during storage and elucidating underlying molecular mechanisms of dormancy regulation using multi-omics approach.
Sub-objective 1.B:Determining the impacts of postharvest treatments to manipulate endogenous NO, ABA, and phenylpropanoid metabolites for improving wound-healing responses of potato tubers and investigating underlying mechanisms at molecular and biochemical level.
Objective 2: IInvestigate the impact of heat stress on postharvest storage and processing qualities for mitigating physiological aging of seed tubers and sugar-end development of processing potatoes.
Sub-objective 2.A: Investigating the effect of heat stress on physiological aging of seed tuber and its subsequent impact on storage qualities and overall crop performance.
Sub-objective 2.B: Investigating impact of heat stress on sugar-end defect and processing qualities of chipping varieties of potato tubers and elucidating underlying molecular mechanisms using multi-omics approach.
Objective 3: Evaluate and report the effects of postharvest storage on intrinsic processing quality and nutritional composition of advanced breeding lines in collaboration with public breeding programs, as part of a Congressionally-designated direct mission of service (non-hypothesis driven.)
Sub-objective 3.A: Determine cold storage (< 7°C) potential and processing characteristics of advanced breeding lines.
Sub-objective 3.B: Screen advanced potato breeding lines for vitamin C and anti-quality compounds impacting food end use.
Approach:
Potato is the leading vegetable crop in the US with annual production of 440 million cwt and retail sales valued at $4.6 billion (Potatoes USA, 2024). For year-around use, tubers are stored for a prolonged period (8-12 months) after harvest. Maintaining optimum processing and nutritional qualities during storage is critical for potato marketability. Premature sprouting and wounding are serious postharvest challenges that affect storage and market qualities. Current postharvest practices are several decades old and chemicals commonly used to maintain tuber quality during storage are under regulatory scrutiny. Extreme weather events during crop growth are further impacting storage, processing, and nutritional qualities of tubers. Heat stress impacts physiological aging of tubers causing deterioration in processing and end-used qualities. The aim of this project is to identify critical molecular, biochemical, and physiological mechanisms controlling dormancy/sprout growth, wound-healing and physiological age of tubers during storage. Ultimately, outcomes from this project will provide new information for developing management strategies for maintaining nutritional, processing, and market qualities of potatoes. Natural and synthetic compounds will be screened as postharvest treatments to control premature sprouting, wound-healing, and physiological aging related quality losses. Promising treatments will be further tested under industrial settings. Equally important, development of superior germplasm is essential for the long-term viability of the US potato industry to introduce new varieties with proven storage characteristics that maximize nutritional and processing potential as well as consumer appeal. Thus, stakeholder-specific services are needed to evaluate superior germplasms for determining their postharvest storage, nutritional, and processing qualities. Therefore, we will collaborate with public breeding programs to screen advanced breeding material for the postharvest storage potential, food quality, and food safety characteristics. The overarching goal of this project is to protect postharvest storage and processing qualities of potatoes across the food supply chain. This project includes stakeholder involvement which is important to this research and helpful in gauging progress via informal discussions throughout the year as well as annual liaison meetings. These meetings and regular interaction with our stakeholders foster transparency, advance industry collaboration, strengthen support for extramural funding, and ensure that our research focus is aligned with industry needs and ultimately providing timely solutions.