Genetic Variation in Potato Cv. Record: Evidence from In Vitro ‘Regeneration Ability’

Regeneration ability in vitro was studied in 170 individual tubers putatively derived from several or many parent plants of the potato cv. Record. Of these, 120 were sprouted and the sprouts used to establish in vitro shoot cultures for leaf disc production. The other 50 were grown in a glasshouse for the production of leaf discs. The reliable regeneration of somaclones from leaf disc calluses was successful from only 11 parental tubers. In ten of these, somaclones were derived from in vitro shoot cultures, and from a glasshouse-grown plant in the other. Four parental tubers gave the majority of somaclones, and one, R149, produced 85% of all somaclones at 15 months from initiation of leaf disc cultures