Native potatoes improved at CIP will aid Andean communities

Lliclla variety

Two new varieties of native potato with resistance to late blight have been bred by CIP scientists that will add value to native potatoes and improve the income of farming communities of the High Andes who grow such varieties. The new improved native varieties also give higher yields than those of their ancestors.

Since 2003, CIP has been working in the Chacllabamba farming community, in the province of Paucartambo, in Cusco. In this area, 4,000 meters above sea level on the eastern slopes of the Andes, CIP staff worked closely with the local farmers to screen varieties and identify two improved lines with resistance to late blight. These will produce two new varieties for the community that could released to the market by Peru’s Instituto Nacional de Investigación Agraria (INIA) by next September. The evaluations were carried out with the Andenes Experimental Station of INIA, CIP, the Peruvian Agrarian Health Service (SENASA), and the Ministry of Agriculture of Paucartambo.

The new varieties have been named Pallayponcho (multi-colored poncho) and Pukalliclla (red lliclla, a square shawl) by the farmers after their traditional clothes. CIP researchers Juan Landeo and Manuel Gastelo noted that the practices of farmers were fully respected. Local farmers are not used to applying chemical fertilizers or pesticides or preparing the soil in a commercial way, but rather till the soil with the traditional “chaquitaclla”, which is common in the region. According to Gastelo, “All of this has been respected. Our intervention was limited to introducing the advanced clones and to screening the new varieties in a participatory fashion.”

Community farmers were very satisfied with the results of the most recent harvest. The new clones showed good resistance to late blight; infection was significantly lower than in local native varieties, where damage could reach 100% of the crop. Yield-wise, the new varieties also far exceeded the native varieties. While native varieties yield 4-6 t/ha, the new varieties have yielded 15-20 t/ha under the same management conditions by the farmers; that is, with no pesticides or fertilizers.

According to Juan Landeo and Manuel Gastelo, what is most important here is that the new improved clones have preserved the culinary qualities of native varieties for fresh consumption, while adding resistance to late blight and precociousness and improving some agronomic features, such as tuber shape and superficial eyes, which will allow such new varieties to be used even in the potato chip and french fries industry, because many of such advanced clones have shown to be good for frying.

Pallayponcho variety

This work is part of CIP’s effort to improve native potatoes. Native potatoes are a valuable heritage of pre-Inca peoples who selected them over the centuries for their good taste, high culinary quality and resistance to the adverse climate conditions of the Andes. At present, about 3,000 native varieties are grown in Peru, all of which are unique, because of the geographic, climate and agroecological requirements typical of the Andean area. The vast majority of these varieties are grown above 3,800 meters. Unfortunately, due to climatic changes, these potatoes are becoming vulnerable to late blight attack, because many of them lack any resistance to the disease. This lack is precisely what the breeding work is seeking to remedy.

Late blight is caused by the pathogen oomycete Phytophthora infestans, a pathogen that constantly mutates, which makes it difficult to find a resistant variety or a permanent cure for the disease. For CIP, helping to find resistant varieties is one of its priorities and, for such purpose, CIP maintains a special research collaboration in close cooperation with the experimental stations of INIA in Peru, but also with national agricultural research systems in other countries of Latin America, Asia and Africa.

The Chucmarina variety, recently launched on to the market in Cajamarca by INIA, is a good example of the breeding success of CIP to fight this disease. With yields of  40 t/ha, high resistance to late blight and broadly adapted in Peru, Chucmarina originated from research materials provided by CIP to the Baños del Inca Agricultural Station in Cajamarca 10 years ago.
 
The main goal of this breeding activity is to develop superior potato clones with high levels of horizontal resistance to late blight and, concurrently, high commercial yields and suitability for fresh consumption and industrial processing. Furthermore, CIP is seeking clones that adapt well not only to the Andean area but to other parts of the world where the disease is a serious constraint to production and expansion of potato crops.