Many of the important traits of crops are quantitative traits. This means that these traits are controlled by many genes and are strongly influenced by environmental factors. For quantitative traits, such as yield, the realized genetic gain in potato was considerably lower than that of other crops like maize or wheat. This is due to potato’s heterozygosity, tetraploidy, and low multiplication coefficient.

Our joint IPK-JKI research group conducts research in the field of quantitative genetics and breeding methodology of potato. The goal is to develop quantitative genetic methods to identify and characterize positive alleles and allele combinations in genetic resources of potato as well as accumulate them in the breeding process. The overarching aim of the working group is to optimally exploit the genetic resources that are e.g. stored in the IPK gene bank for breeding purpose to increase genetic gain in potato.

To achieve this goal, we pursue various approaches:

• Quantitative genetic analysis of experimental data-sets (QTL analysis, genomic selection)
• Computer simulations
• Quantitative genetic theory that takes into account the specificities of polyploid species