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

马铃薯是各种膳食和菜肴中消费的主食，也是加拿大粮食安全的重要园艺作物。 圭尔夫大学和加拿大家庭马铃薯种子农场之间拟议的合作研究的目标是将传统的克隆繁殖方法与新的CRISPR-Cas 9基因编辑技术进行比较，以改善新鲜市场马铃薯品种的性状。 这些传统和创新策略将用于获得产量、品质和抗病性方面的理想性状。 这项工作将有助于使新鲜市场马铃薯产业更具竞争力，提供知识，使大幅度改善流行的马铃薯品种。 将建立1000多个品系，并在位于加拿大东部和西部的温室和田间试验中评估每个独立品系的理想性状表达。 该项目将有助于培训和教育个人和行业有关基因编辑科学发展的知识。 这项工作的成果将有利于加拿大园艺产业，并导致我们的理解的途径，调节每株马铃薯块茎的数量和大小，块茎皮肤颜色和抗真菌疾病的新鲜市场/鲜食马铃薯。 改善种质和使植物对环境更具适应力将导致植物在更少的土地上种植，使用更少的资源投入，包括水和农药，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.