Current trends in breeding to improve nutritional value of potato tubers

The purpose of the work: to study the effectiveness of using donors and parent lines in the implementation of the most important areas of selection based on optimal hybridization options and selection of breeding valuable gene types to improve the nutritional value of tubers of new promising potato varieties. The research material: varietal samples from the collection of VIR and Lorch Potato Research Institute, created on the basis of interspecific hybridization and subsequent return crosses with varieties of S. tuberosum. The research was carried out in 2008–2018 at the experimental bases of Lorch Potato Research Institute «Korenevo» and «Pyshlitsy» Moscow region. As a result of studying hybrids transgressive cleavage of tubers by starchiness was found in accumulating crosses of parents with a starchiness of 18-19%, which significantly increases the level of this trait in the offspring, which is rarely correlated with yield. Therefore, identification of genotypes, combined the two features observed only at the level of the average population, coinciding with the average starch content parents, and the effectiveness of the selection low-starchy forms is much higher, since the decrease in the level of a trait has negative correlation with productivity. Hybrids with high starchiness (19–21%) of tubers, genotypes containing from 50.6 to 61.5% of large starch granules (> 60 mkm) are measured, which makes it possible to select forms with a high starch content. A high correlation (+0.897) of the protein content in tubers of the parent forms with the average protein content of the offspring was established, which confirms the presence of control of this feature by additive acting polygens. At the same time, during natural meiotic recombination in hybrid populations, the protein content of hybrid tubers in the extreme classes of the variation series increases to 3.5–3.9%, which exceeds the protein content of control samples by 1.5–1.9%. When measuring the antioxidant activity (AOA) of collectible nursery cultivars, its high level (1032–1280 mg/kg) was established in hybrids with pigmented skin and pulp of tubers, characterized by a high content of carotenoids and anthocyanins that determine its level. Among the hybrid offspring from the crossing of red-purple and red-tuberous parent forms, the largest number of phenotypes with red-purple color was noted, exceeding by 9.7–12% other variants. The use of selected variety samples as donors of a complex of economically useful features allows speeding up the selection process and reducing the cost of creating new potato varieties with improved nutritional value of the tubers.

Key words: potatoes, selection, nutritional value, crunchiness, protein content, antioxidants