Title: Development and Improvement of Seed Potato Production in the Middle East

The potato is an important crop in Morocco, Israel, and the USA. High quality seed tubers are needed to avoid the decline in vigor that occurs due to accumulation of pathogens when tubers are repeatedly recycled for ‘seed’ production. Thus most potato growing countries have seed potato certification programs designed to keep pathogen levels low in potato crops. Most of the certified seed potatoes planted in Morocco and Israel are imported from European countries, which have potato pathogens that are under quarantine in many Middle Eastern countries. Technology for reliable detection of pathogens in dormant tubers is not available. The ability to detect pathogens in dormant tubers is of an utmost importance due to the very short period of time available to detect pathogens in seed lots before distribution to the growers and planting.

To enable efficient detection of pathogens and to ensure local production of disease-tested healthy planting material, technology for nucleic acid based diagnostic assays (PCR and hybridization assays) for quarantined and emerging pathogens, as well as other pathogens of significant importance to seed certification in the Middle East, will be developed and transferred between participating countries.

The nucleic acid based diagnostic techniques developed in this project for common potato pathogens important for seed potato certification will be tested using locally grown potato tubers to determine if the assays are able to detect pathogens in naturally infected tubers, to determine if the assay results correlate with the level of disease seen when the tubers are grown into plants, and to test the efficiency and sensitivity of the assays.

The establishment of a local potato seed industry in Middle East countries is of great importance in order to diminish the introduction of quarantine and new emerging diseases and in order to enhance the local economies. This project is aimed at the development of local seed production through the utilization of the various regions and climate conditions in Morocco and Israel. The diagnostic tools developed in this project could be implemented by certification laboratories to ensure the high quality of the locally produced seed.

Another serious constraint to potato production in the Mediterranean is the severe shortage of fresh water resources. On the other hand, local sources of saline water are available in many Middle East countries and the implementation of technologies that will allow the production of potato seed tubers with saline water resources is of high priority. Salinity is expected to reduce tuber size, however the reduction in tuber size due to salinity is not a disadvantage in the seed industry since smaller tuber diameters are desired in seed tubers. Previous work in Israel has demonstrated the feasibility of growing potatoes with saline water in desert areas, and in this project we propose to develop protocols for production of seed potatoes using saline water.