This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: The latest potato variety released in August by the Texas A&M Potato Breeding Program, the Duncan Russet potato, delivers disease resistance that will directly benefit growers in the southern U.S., including Texas. But it's just the latest variety developed by a potato program that has created new and improved varieties for growers for decades and helped shape what lands on dining tables across Texas and beyond.
Since 1998, the potato breeding program has delivered 14 commercially released varieties that have been licensed by nearly 150 U.S. and Canadian companies, according to a report by the Intellectual Property and Commercialization Office for Texas A&M AgriLife. Those varieties have collectively generated more than $11 million in licensing revenue, and over the past decade, the program's annual licensing income has ranked among the highest of any breeding program in the Texas A&M University System. Fresh-market russets, French fry-processing potatoes and specialty varieties in shades of purple, red and gold are bred to survive the state's brutal summer heat while meeting the standards that growers, processors and shoppers demand.
Isabel Vales, a Texas A&M AgriLife Research potato breeder and professor in the Texas A&M Department of Horticultural Sciences, leads the program. Vales joined the AgriLife Research breeding program after leading Oregon State University's potato breeding program for five years and has interacted with the national potato industry for more than 15 years. Vales said the potato program at Texas A&M AgriLife built its strong foundation on decades of collaboration, sharing breeding material among 12 national public potato programs, primarily with Southwest regional partners in Colorado and California, as well as Oregon, Idaho and Washington in the Northwest.
"Growers and the broader industry are showing a lot of interest in our releases," Vales said. "We're focused on making meaningful impacts for growers in the field that also translate to market and consumer demand." The potato breeding program manages a clone bank of more than 245 advanced breeding lines spanning nearly every market class, disease-resistance package and heat-tolerance trait that growers need. The process of creating new potato varieties can take more than a decade.
But in the end, improved traits translate into stronger returns for producers in Texas and across the nation. The program partners with Texas potato growers like CSS Farms near Dalhart and Springlake Potatoes near Lubbock, which provide land and equipment for large-scale variety trials. That work has helped fuel a recent wave of Aggie-bred releases.
Newer Texas A&M varieties—Vanguard Russet, Reveille Russet, Dune Russet and Duncan Russet—are gaining traction because they deliver performance advantages for growers and meet market demand. Duncan Russet's resistance to potato virus Y (PVY), one of the industry's costliest diseases, is a "big deal" for growers in Texas and warmer climates around the U.S., Vales said. The virus can cause yield losses of up to 80% in a field if left unchecked.
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