Potatoes - Flesh colour
The flesh colour may be white or yellow, and in addition coloured purple or red by anthocyanin.
Yellow is usually but not always dominant to white.
Krantz (1922) seld pollinated Congo, a purple fleshed variety, and found purple to be caused by
a single gene.
Muller (1923) described a coloured-flesh variety which when selfed gave a ratio of 9 colored to to 7 white,
suggesting that two genes are involved. He called them C and I.
The coloured variety when crossed with the recessive white gave only white in the F1; which one would not
expect. He suggested
therefore that this white parent was homozygous for an anthocyanin inhibitor Z.
I selfed Salad Blue, a purple-fleshed variety (2002) and obtained about 100 plants, every shade of colour between
deep purple and white, indicating that several genes are involved.
Sirks considered five genes to be involved in determining colour of seedlings, sprouts and axils.
I would be interested to hear from anyone who has worked on this, who can fill in some of the gaps.
Meanwhile, here are some photographs:
Pictures (click on small images for detail):
PURPLE (Congo) |
BLUE-PURPLE (Salad Blue) |
RED (Highland Burgundy Red) |
White (Edzell Blue) |
VARIOUS (Salad Blue Seedlings) |
YELLOW (Moulin Rouge) |
Nigel Deacon / Diversity website
(based on Crane & Lawrence, 1934)
