Importance of Potato as a Crop and Practical Approaches to Potato Breeding

Potatoes (Solanum tuberosum L. subsp. tuberosum and andigena) and seven other related species, which are cultivated today, have become the most important non-cereal crop in the world. It is grown on a significant scale in 130 countries, with a gross production value of 63.6 billion US dollars in 2016, with the yearly potato production of 368 million tons in 2018. Today potato is grown for food, animal feed, industrial uses, and seed tuber production, depending on the region, country development, and historical reasons. The food production is both for fresh ware markets and for processing into crisps, french fries, canned potatoes, flakes, etc. More than 10,000 potato varieties have been grown worldwide to date, many of which are still grown. Despite such a large number of varieties, there is still a need for new varieties. Classical breeding of new potato varieties in many programs around the world has changed little in decades and differs mainly in terms of scope and technologies used. Until the turn of the millennium, it was based primarily on empirical experience and selection of individual phenotypic traits. The great genetic diversity that exists in potato and its wild relatives is both an opportunity and a challenge to introduce traits that do not currently exist in the potato gene pool into modern potato varieties. Molecular marker technology development has reached the point where published markers for use in commercial breeding are available. Markers can be used during the whole selection process, with an even more important role of molecular breeding in pre-breeding programs and creation of the most appropriate parental lines.