Reliability of morphological and molecular characterization of lightsprouts for differentiation of potato accessions

The study of reliability of morphological characterization of lightsprouts for differentiation of potato varieties was performed at the Agricultural Institute of Slovenia in cooperation with Biotechnical Faculty Podgorica in order to introduce simple method for further characterization of potato accessions in Montenegrin gene bank. Seven selected, potentially different, potato accessions preserved in the Montenegrin gene bank were used for morphological characterization of lightsprouts. Using UPOV guidelines 11 lightsprout traits were estimated. Molecular assessment was carried out in parallel with morphological characterization by six microsatellite (SSR) markers. The latter successfully distinguished all accessions but two, while four different lightsprout phenotypes were identified in morphological characterization. Though molecular markers showed more strength in resolving relationships between genotypes, characterization of lightsprouts still demonstrated its usefulness due to cheap, simple and rapid procedure.