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Potato Breeding at ASRBC in collaboration with TCRC

Potato is one of the most important cash and food crops that support carbohydrate in the food chain. The crop is a winter one and covers the period of time from around October to March in Bangladesh. There are a number of cold storages in different areas of the country. The higher the concentration of cold storage the higheris the production. Still, large volumes of freshly harvested potato cannot be marketed in time, resulting in a loss to farmers of their high investment in the crop. Again the infestation of Late Blight is one of the most dangerous diseases that reduce the yields sharply and also immediately after the infestation. Thus, both these problems need to be solved by introducing varieties that have higher dry matter and longer shelf life at ambient temperature. As a result, the slow market intake will not result into a loss. There is also a need for Late Blight (LB) resistant variety while increasing the production.

The ASRBC thus took up the program of transferring the desired LB resistant trait in collaboration with TCRC scientists. The ASRBC has been involved with potato research since 2012 and has improved the Lal Pakri-1 to yield 30 tons/ha. By the permission of Seed Wing, ACI- Pakri 1 is now being produced and marketed. Now ASRBC is looking towards improving the popular varieties in Bangladesh by making them LB resistant through hybridization, marker-assisted selection, pathogen bioassays and positive selection techniques. Potatoimprovement research activities are being conducted at Debiganj ASRBC potato research station and at the laboratory in Dhaka.