Thanks for your interest in James Hutton Limited potato work.

The James Hutton Institute has a proud history of collaboration with government and commercial organisations, working in partnership to meet the needs of evolving industries and changing consumer tastes.

James Hutton Limited manages a range of plant breeding projects, including a number of potato breeding programmes, underpinned by science and collaborative research from the James Hutton Institute.

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The James Hutton Limited Parental Improvement Programme 

The Parental Improvement Programme at James Hutton Limited develops enhanced breeding parents for use in commissioned breeding programmes.

Much progress has been made in recent years with the development of a molecular marker production pipeline by JHI scientists Dr Ingo Hein and Dr Xinwei Chen. The essential molecular tool underpinning the pipeline is known as RenSeq (Resistance gene enrichment sequencing).  RenSeq technology means that resistance genes in potato plant material can be identified quickly, allowing James Hutton Limited to ensure that the right parental material, with the desired traits, enter into industry breeding programmes.

James Hutton Limited, Potato Breeder, Drummond Todd, explains: “dRenSeq is very useful for allowing us to identify known resistances in breeding clones and existing varieties; it also allows us to identify previously unpublished resistance genes.”

This novel molecular technique has become integral to the James Hutton Limited parental improvement programme offering more accuracy, supporting the production of varieties that are more robust for the future. 

More about dRenSeq

All plants possess a large family of genes that encode resistance proteins and these help to protect the plant against disease.  

How?

Functional resistance proteins scan plant cells for a unique companion protein, which would be delivered by a pathogen and if a pathogen protein is detected by a resistance protein, it signals for localised plant cell death to limit further spread of the perceived pathogen.  

What does this mean for potatoes? 

The resistance potential of each potato cultivar depends on the differing combination of functional resistance genes it possesses, versus the varying cocktails of proteins each pathogen isolate uses to cause infection and so, the challenge for scientists and breeders is to identify and deploy the resistance proteins that recognise the widest range of isolates in new potato material. 

This is where dRenSeq comes in. dRenSeq allows resistance gene sequences to be rapidly and confidently detected in all types of Solanum species.  Using dRenSeq, scientists and potato breeders can pinpoint where there is varietal resistance to late blight and other major pathogens, ensuring healthier, resistant potatoes for the future.

You can find out more about dRenSeq on our website. 

James Hutton Limited Molecular Diagnostics

Likewise, dRenSeq, has become an important tool in the development of molecular technologies from which James Hutton Limited offers molecular diagnostic services for potato (and soft fruit/barley) breeders and  growers.

Breeding for disease resistance requires the efficient use of molecular markers. Our James Hutton Institute colleagues have developed highly robust and transferable markers. Converting disease resistance specific sequence polymorphisms into competitive-allele-specific PCR (KASP) markers which enable unambiguous discrimination between resistant and susceptible cultivars.

Thanks to the development of dRenSeq, James Hutton Limited currently offer a service to screen breeding/varietal material for blight resistance using KASP markers.  Four KASP markers are currently used that are linked to different sources of blight resistance genes.

Other molecular diagnostic tests are available.

Contact Vanessa Young, Head of Molecular Diagnostics, for more information and quotations.

James Hutton Limited commercial work is developed and supported by our colleagues at the James Hutton Institute, alongside a wide range of academic and commercial partners.

These are just two of the current ground-breaking projects – focusing on PCN and Blackleg - that will have a huge impact on the efficiency of James Hutton Limited breeding capabilities and services in the months and years to come.

£2.2 million Project to Tackle PCN

A major new project, which will focus specifically on tackling potato cyst nematode (PCN), will be led by Scotland’s Plant Health Centre (PHC), receiving £2.2 million of Scottish Government funding over five years.

The PHC is based at the James Hutton Institute, Dundee.  PHC Director, Professor Ian Toth, a cornerstone of the internationally recognised plant health work at the James Hutton Institute and a globally recognised potato bacterial disease expert, will lead the new project.

A working group, also led by Prof Toth, was set up in 2020 to identify a strategy to deal with PCN, with more than 50 industry, government and academic partners. The group published a report outlining key recommendations, which the new project will now undertake.

Project partners include Scotland's Rural College (SRUC), Biomathematics & Statistics Scotland (BioSS), SoilEssentials, Scottish Agronomy and Science and Advice for Scottish Agriculture (SASA).

Prof Toth, said: “This is a fantastic example of how Scottish industry, government and academia can work together to solve important Scottish issues and I am proud that Scotland’s Plant Health Centre has been given such a central role in this. We will make every effort to ensure success and I look forward to working with all involved.”

The project will begin with a detailed economic assessment to fully investigate the financial consequences of PCN in Scotland and desk studies to better understand the reasons for the increase in PCN and the knowledge and tools that are available to tackle it.

New sources of PCN resistance will be sought to help produce new resistant cultivars and other sustainable control options will be tested. The work will culminate in the production of a computer-based decisions support tool for the industry, tackling pests in potatoes through the protection of clean land and the management of land already infested with pests.

Read more about the project HERE

Read more about Scotland’s Plant Health Centre HERE

New £2 million grant from the Bacteria Diseases Initiative for research on blackleg disease of potato

James Hutton Institute researchers, along with academic partners from NIAB-CUF and the universities of Dundee, Durham, Glasgow, Newcastle and Strathclyde, industry partners Bayer Crop Science, SA Consulting, Scottish Agronomy, Soil Essentials and Scottish Government through SASA, have been awarded a £2 million grant from the Bacteria Diseases Initiative for research on blackleg disease of potato. AHDB will also play an important role in the project’s knowledge exchange through its Farm Excellence Platform.

Current blackleg knowledge assumes that disease is caused through Pba-infected seed tubers. However, recent unpublished data have shown that under high soil moisture following irrigation, disease appears in plants grown from pathogen free seed (minitubers). The most likely explanation is that bacteria enter the plant and cause disease directly from the soil; something not previously considered. It has also been shown that Pba is able to colonise roots of other plant species (including crops), possibly as natural rhizosphere-dwelling saprophytes in the soil. In pot trials with Pba alone, it was shown there was no movement of Pba from soil into the plant. However, when free-living nematodes (FLN) were added to soil, a 100-fold increase in Pba in stems occurred.

Through these and other findings, there is now the potential to make a step change in how we manage blackleg.

You can find out more about this project HERE.  For more information about blackleg or PCN research, contact Professor Ian Toth. 

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the Potato team