A Method to Screen Potato Breeding Lines for Blackheart Resistance

Abstract

Potato physiological disorders, including blackheart and hollow heart, are major causes of waste, but a limitation in developing resistant breeding lines or identifying the biological basis of these disorders is a lack of convenient assays. Here we evaluated whether post-harvest heat-treatments of tubers could be used to induce blackheart, hollow heart or heat necrosis. A range of treatments were assessed. A 24-hour treatment of tubers at 41 °C was found to be effective at inducing blackheart. No heat-treatment conditions were effective at inducing hollow heart or heat necrosis. A machine vision method using a conveyor belt phenotyping platform was used to measure blackheart severity. Numerous breeding lines were evaluated for blackheart resistance and several identified that were resistant. This method will allow breeding programs to efficiently screen for blackheart resistance in breeding lines and facilitate study of the genetic and physiological basis of resistance.