Variabilidade genética e tolerância ao déficit hídrico em genótipos de batata (Solanum tuberosum L.)

Abstract

The potato is the third major food crop in the world and is one of the most sensitive species to water deficit. Given the climate change scenario, the cultivation of potatoe is highly threatened, and it is urgent the need to develop varieties adapted to this demand. This work was developed aiming to characterize the genetic structure of the potato germplasm from Embrapa breeding program and to evaluate the response of potato genotypes to water deficit in two growing seasons. To evaluate the genetic structure from potato germplasm, 131 genotypes were characterized with seven SSR loci. The results showed that although the evaluated germplasm has shown a wide and unstructured genetic variability, there is a trend of narrowing the genetic base that is actually being used by the breeding program. To evaluate the response of potato genotypes to drought stress, 12 genotypes were evaluated in two seasons, spring and fall, in hydroponic culture using polyethyleneglycol to simulate a water deficit of -0.129 MPa. The genotypes were evaluated with respect to various morphological and agronomic characters, such as root and shoot dry weight as well as number of tubers produced per plant. Based on the results of this work can be seen that the potato genotypes respond differently to drought stress depending on the growing season that it is cultivated, if spring or fall. It was also found that the negative effect of drought stress in tuber development and yield is more pronounced in spring season than in autumn.