News August 2007
The wet weather over North Western Europe, combined with the well-developed potato fields, is a perfect breeding ground for the potato disease Phytophthora, potato blight. This is a threat to the cultivation of potatoes as well as a challenge for their breeding.
Since the beginning of its breeding programme, C. Meijer BV has been engaged in identifying resistance to Phytophthora. The Terragold variety has a significantly higher-level of resistance than the average variety and is being biologically cultivated in several countries.
However, there is more news to report. This year we started to introduce the new variety BIONICA that, in cooperation with the biological hobby grower Niek Vos, was selected from many thousands of other seedlings being grown under biological conditions. This variety contains a defence response gene from the potato relative: Solanum bulbocastanum. The basic material for this was developed in the 70’s at the Department of Plant Cultivation at Wageningen University, lead by Professor Hermsen. Within the Meijer programme, this material has been further crossbred to create genitors ‘with market value’.
The heavily infected Phytophthora field with BIONICA in the foreground
For eight years, this variety has been shown to be unaffected in trial fields, which had been heavily infected with Phytophthora. The desired defence response gene has been found in many other seedlings but, as we, together with Niek Vos, are very critical regarding agricultural and marketing properties, so far, the BIONICA has been the only potato able to breed. Bionica is an oval potato with an attractive skin, a creamy white flesh colour that is suitable for boiling and home fries.
Besides this interesting resistance, C. Meijer B.V. also uses other resistance sources in its cultivation programme, with the objective of keeping Phytophthora away, which gives us more options. There also seem to be interesting parents, which should be able to provide varieties within 5-10 years.
Part of the genitors programme with several new resistance sources.
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