Inbreeding depression may affect the performance of consecutive generations of potatoes propagated by true potato seed (TPS).
The effect of inbreeding was established using selfed and sib-mated generations of five TPS families. Correlation coefficients
were calculated between the level of inbreeding and different traits. Inbreeding depression was expressed mainly by pollen
viability, as measured by its stainability (
r=−0.912,
P<0.01), and tuber yield (
r=−0.837, 0.01<
P<0.05). The results also indicated that without unavoidable selection inbreeding depression is expected to be more evident.
Furthermore, the TPS families responded quite differently to inbreeding depression. They did not show the same amount of depression
for yield as they did for the characters concerning fertility. The high tuber-yielding families displayed a greater inbreeding
depression for tuber yield than the lower-yielding families.
Key words Hybrid vigor - True potato seed
Received: 10 November 1997 / Accepted: 3 March 1998