The Commonwealth Potato Collection is the UK’s genebank of landrace and wild potatoes held in trust by the James Hutton Institute with the support of the Scottish Government. The collection is one of a network of international potato genebanks.
The collection comprises around 1500 accessions of about 80 wild and cultivated potato species. Each accession traces back to a handful of berries or tubers from potato plants in South or Central America, gathered from the wild or obtained from a grower at a market.
Such genetic resources are priceless, comprising the basic resource for the improvement and adaptation of the world’s fourth most important food crop, the potato.
The collection comprises around 1500 accessions of about 80 wild and cultivated potato species collected from around the world.
Exploitation of the CPC
The CPC has provided crucial germplasm to the research and breeding community, and just one gene, H1, from Solaum tuberosum Group Andigena CPC1673 has given resistance to the PCN species Globodera rostochiensis in more than half of the current UK National Listed potato cultivars. The economic and environmental savings brought about by this one gene are enormous, and current research is looking to consolidate this benefit by bringing in new sources of resistance from the CPC to the other PCN species now overtaking G. rostochiensis, G. pallida, as the deployment of H1 suppresses the first of these pathogens.
Much wider use has been made of the collection, including a range of genes for virus and other resistances. Currently we are interested in the possibilities of breeding tolerance to abiotic stresses into cultivated potato, and, in a time of increasing concern over climate change, amongst these stresses water and mineral use efficiency are high priorities.
The CPC has been widely used in public displays over the years, and has featured for example at the Eden Project and even in art events across Europe. CPC staff have been particularly active at horticultural and trade events, spreading the message to the public and to the industry that germplasm collections such as the CPC are extremely important resources for the challenges for the future, and also resources that permit us to unravel the route taken by our major crops since man gathered their ancestors from the wild.
Benefit sharing and IP
Together with the other genebanks in the UK, we are committed to the international agreements affecting the use of the germplasm held in trust for mankind. The main objective of these agreements is to ensure continued access to such germplasm by having mechanisms to ensure benefit sharing with the countries initially donating germplasm to the international genebanks.
