Plant breeder Solynta will present more details on Wednesday 23 August about the first multi-resistant potato variety that has commercial prospects. In the meantime, multinationals such as McDonalds have shown interest in the Phytophthora-resistant variety.
Solynta from Wageningen, founded by tomato breeders, has invested millions in hybrid potatoes from seed. This started in 2006. The first patent was filed in 2009, followed by the first field tests the following year.
In 2017 it is time for the next innovation. Phytophthora resistances have been crossed into a number of good parental lines that have been purged to generate double-resistant hybrids. These different diploid varieties with built-in double Phytophthora resistance are currently being tested at 3 test field locations.
Combining varieties
"In total, approximately 60 properties are important for a chip or potato chip potato variety. In hybrid breeding we cross 2 parents with roughly 30 properties from the mother and 30 from the father," explains general manager Hein Kruyt. “What we are working on now is combining all these traits in the parental lines to make good hybrids.”
Interest from McDonalds
With the hybrid potato, Solynta first focuses on the French fries and chips sector. "Simply because that's where you can earn the most," says Hein Kruyt. "McDonalds has now visited us and we have visited them. They are very interested in our technology. They would like to use it to improve the largest chip potato variety, the Russet Burbank." "This variety has been cultivated since 1876," says head of R&D Pim Lindhout. "The entire chip chain is geared to this. It makes sense to take this variety as a starting point."
Collaborate with trading houses
By the way, Solynta itself does not intend to act as a potato trading house. It simply works as a breeder of new varieties, just like a hobby breeder does for trading companies. That is why it will work with licenses of hybrid varieties. In the current light of the European Union, this licensing is still a difficult issue, but not one that director Kruyt is concerned about. "Our revenue model is not in jeopardy."
Speed of breeding
The company uses diploid potato seed for their multi-resistant varieties. With the help of DNA markers, the properties of the parental line can always be found. This makes the technology very predictable. Moreover, a lot of starting material can be produced in an extremely short time. What traditional breeding takes 8 years, Solynta can do in 1,5 years.
The theoretical disadvantage of the diploid seed is the fact that it only has 60% of the yield compared to the known tetraploid varieties. The company's test results have now shown that this is different in practice. The bet is on a 10% increase in yield per year, but this has now been exceeded. The big problem with tetraploids is that every seed is unique. This is therefore not suitable for breeding.
Europe remains traditional
The company cannot say exactly when the first hybrid potato from seed, with multiple resistance to Phytophthora, will come onto the market. It will still take a few years for that to happen. It is in discussions with several seed potato trading companies for the eventual marketing of the potatoes.
Moreover, it is of the opinion that it may never replace traditional seed potato cultivation in Europe. Exports, for example to Africa, are particularly interesting to replace with seed due to the enormous logistics costs. The seed is then grown locally and sold. In Western Europe, the climate is also uncooperative, because the number of growing days is relatively short.