Valuable old genes – diepresse.com

There is a strange custom at the grave of the Prussian King Frederick II. (Solanum tuberosum) Supported – in memory that Friedrich supposedly introduced this nutritious plant in German lands. Historians regularly notice that this is wrong: his grandfather already had potatoes planted, but without great success. Friedrich’s merit is more that he (at the same time as his opponent Maria Theresia) tried to break the resistance of the population against the new fruits. He, as was learned in the catalog for the « Flower Power » exhibition just opened in the Lower Austrian Landesgalerie in Krems, guarded potato mäckers from soldiers, which the plant should appear particularly valuable.

A generation later the potato started its triumphal march: Without the nutritious tubers. B. the cities growing in the course of the industrial revolution cannot be fed. However, this led directly to a disaster: in 1845 the mushroom broke in Ireland Phytophthora Infestans caused potato rot, against which the then grown « Irish Lumper » variety had no resistance. The consequences were malfirmed, one million fatalities and two million emigrants.

The reason for this was that the gene pool of the former potatoes in Europe was very narrow – practically all plants came from a few tubers who came to Europe from the late 16th century. « The big famine in Ireland in the 1840s is a blatant example of how a lack of diversity in the genetic basis and the cultivation systems can lead to catastrophic results, » noted the World Food organization Fao the previous week on the occasion of the world day of potatoes (May 30).

In the home of the SolanumSpecies in the South American Andean Highlands was-and is completely different: the tubers were domesticated there at least 8000 years ago, in addition to the wild around 100 types of ancestors, more than 5000 different types were bred in all possible shapes, colors, sizes and properties-the number of chromosome rates in the cells doubled from two (diploid) to four (tetraploid).

Today you are aware of this genetic treasure: In the « Parque de la Papa » at Cusco, 1400 types of potatoes are carefully cultivated at 15,000 hectares. Breeders are very interested. Because potato monocultures still tend to mass pest infestation today. In Austria, for example, the wire worm is – larvae of quick beetles (Elateridae) – a huge problem. Researchers are now looking for genes in the old varieties or the wild ancestors that make the potato more resistant to pests or environmental influences – keyword: climate change.

The author led the research department of the « press » and is now a science communicator at AIT.

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