Evaluation of Agronomic Performances of New Processing Potato Varieties with Low Acrylamide.

The SCRI-Acrylamide project started from 2011 with the goal of selecting and adopting new potato varieties that produce lower acrylamide while maintaining or exceeding current good traits. Acrylamide is a suspect human carcinogen that is present in potato French fries and chips after processed at high temperature. Agronomic trials of the project were conducted at six locations (ID, ME, MN, OR, WA, WI) in 2013 and 2014 to evaluate yield, size distribution, and post-harvest processing quality of advanced frying varieties. Those varieties have shown promising low acrylamide forming potential in previous studies. Results have indicated that throughout the six locations, some varieties (AF3001-6, AF4296-3) consistently out-yielded others, some (A02507-2LB, W8152-1rus) had specific gravity that consistently fell within the commercially desired range. These advanced varieties also showed low incidence of internal defect and length to width ratio, suggesting good shape for frying potatoes. Fry color, sugar profiles (sucrose and glucose), and sugar end defects, a physiological disorder that causes discoloration on one end of French fries, are monitored at 0, 16, and 32 weeks subsequent to harvest to look for varieties that persist well until late May. Long term storage capability is one of the most critical traits that newly adopted frying potato varieties should possess. Additionally, data has been collected on individual tuber specific gravity variation within a variety, an important indicator of consistency of tuber solid content. Genetic correlation matrix for each agronomic trait has been generated to evaluate if data can be borrowed between different sites for future breeding purposes. Ongoing research is to establish a computational model to predict acrylamide forming potential with available data. Other studies are underway to investigate how tuber maturation affected by different in-season N treatments can influence post-harvest fry quality and acrylamide content of the processed products.