Introduction of CRISPR and clonal derived potato variety agronomic and immunity improvements

土豆是各种膳食和菜肴中的主食，也是加拿大粮食安全的重要园艺作物。Guelph大学和加拿大一个家庭马铃薯种场合作研究的目的是比较传统的克隆繁殖方法和新的CRISPR-Cas 9基因编辑技术在改良新鲜市场马铃薯品种性状方面的作用。这些传统和创新的策略将被应用于获得理想的产量、质量和抗病性状。这项工作将有助于通过提供知识对受欢迎的马铃薯品种进行实质性改进，使新鲜市场马铃薯行业更具竞争力。将建立1000多个品系，每个独立品系将在加拿大东部和西部的温室和田间试验中进行理想性状的表现评估。该项目将有助于对个人和行业进行关于基因编辑科学发展的培训和教育。这项工作的成果将使加拿大园艺业受益，并有助于我们更好地了解调控每株马铃薯块茎的数量和大小、块茎皮肤颜色和新鲜市场/鲜食马铃薯的抗真菌疾病的途径。改进种质和提高植物对环境的适应能力将导致植物在更少的土地上种植，使用更少的资源投入，包括水和杀虫剂，以应对气候和人口挑战，并降低生产改进的高质量产品的成本，以满足公众和行业需求并扩大加拿大出口市场。

Potato is a staple food consumed in a wide variety of meals and dishes and is a critical horticultural crop for food security in Canada. The objectives of the proposed collaborative research between University of Guelph and a Canadian family potato seed farm is to compare traditional clonal propagation methods with new CRISPR-Cas 9 gene editing technology for improving traits in fresh market potato cultivars. These traditional and innovative strategies will be applied to obtain desirable traits in yield, quality and disease resistance. This work will facilitate in making the fresh market potato industry more competitive by providing the knowledge for making substantial improvements to popular potato varieties. Over 1000 lines will be established and each independent line will be evaluated for expression of desirable traits in the greenhouse and field trials located in eastern and western Canada. This project will contribute to training and educating individuals and the industry about gene editing scientific developments. Outcomes from this work will benefit the Canadian horticultural industry and lead to improvement of our understanding of the pathways regulating the number and size of potato tubers per plant, tuber skin colour and fungal disease resistance in fresh market/table potato. Improving germplasm and making plants more resilient to the environment will result in plants being grown on less land with the use of fewer resource inputs, including water and pesticides to meet climate and population challenges, and reducing costs of production of an improved high quality product to address public and industry needs and expand Canadian export markets.