“This work will be a fantastic source of information for potato geneticists and breeders and will provide a very rich source of data that will facilitate diploid hybrid breeding."
An international research team featuring the James Hutton Institute has shed further light on the evolution and biology of potato as a genetically complex global food crop.
Most commercially grown potato varieties are tetraploids, which means they possess four sets of chromosomes. Potato varieties that are diploid – with just two sets of chromosomes – are less complex to breed and have the potential to revolutionise future potato breeding and production.
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