New Dutch research could foil potato blight

Research lead

Researchers from the Laboratory of Plant Breeding at Wageningen University in The Netherlands, have, in collaboration with researchers from the John Innes Centre, UK and Ohio State Universisty, USA, demonstrated that broad spectrum resistance of potatoes against Phytophthora infestans can be achieved using a technique that identifies and isolates several resistance genes, which, if simultaneously used, could provide sustainable protection against potato blight.

Phytophthora first ravaged the potato during the 19th century and has since been a permanent threat to potato crops causing considerable damage to crops leading to high production costs. This method to identify resistance genes will bypass the requirement for labour-intensive processes in the search for sustainable resistance and render the use of fungicides unnecessary.

The method relies on indentifying which resistance genes in the potato are involved in the recognition of pathogenic effector proteins produced by Phytophtora infestans upon infection. The researchers studied 54 potential effector proteins on a range of potato species, and identified one, called IPiO, which conferred resistance to three different potato species. Finding that this gene was the avirulence gene of the resistance gene, then resistance gene was then identified.

Using this technique the prevalence and nature of resistance genes will be known and very difficult for the pathogen to break. By combining several of these potentially hard-to-break resistance genes, sustainable resistance will be achievable.