Induction and application of dihaploids of potato [Solanum tuberosum L.]

The breed ing work with com mon po tato as a tetraploid crop is com pli cated. Re duc ing the tetraploid chro mo some num ber to the dip loid one, makes the re search and breed ing sim pler, be cause tetrasomic in her i tance is re placed with disomic. Dihaploids of S. tuberosum crossable to var i ous dip loid Solanum spe cies give also pos si bil ity for di rect gene trans fer from the wild and prim i tive cul ti vated Solanum spe cies to the S. tuberosum back ground. In this way the gene pool of com mon po tato is im proved and en riched, but there are also dis ad van tages con nected with us ing of dihaploids and it is nec es sary to change the ploidy level back to the tetraploid one in or der to pro duce a cultivar. In spite of that, dihaploids were uti lized in sev eral po tato breed ing programmes con ducted in Eu rope and USA. Dihaploids con trib uted to many modern potato cultivars, facilitating genetic works.