Brazil: Progress in potato cultivar development by Embrapa and partners

Potatoes are grown in different regions in Brazil, between 31°S and 13°S latitude and between 19m and 1360m altitude. In 2015, the total growing area was about 127,000 ha with an average yield of 28.7 tha. Close to 90% of this area is planted with foreign cultivars, which lack adaptation to the country’s ecological conditions and culinary quality to meet consumer requirements. Consumption of fresh potatoes is decreasing; while processed products are increasing, especially French fries. Embrapa (Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation) has been carrying on a breeding program to develop well adapted and market quality varieties, targeting to obtain high-yielding, improved tolerance to biotic and abiotic stress-cultivars, focusing on the producing regions and consumer markets in the country, for both fresh market and processing. The Embrapa potato breeding program is organized as a research network. In the last nine years, four cultivars were released by the program. These cultivars are very promising as to its adoption by the potato chain, suggesting good prospects for the Embrapa breeding program in the development of new competitive cultivars. More