Assessment of local potato cultivars found in Cis-Himalayan region of West Bengal through morphology and biochemical profiling

Potato is a major global food crop grown for tubers (underground storage stems) that are high in carbohydrates, minerals, and vitamins. The presence of anthocyanins in tuber skin and flesh can have a significant impact on customer preferences. Potatoes are also high in resistant starches, which have a variety of health benefits, including enhanced fullness, cholesterol reduction, and a reduced risk of colon cancer etc. In West Bengal, diabetes is prevalent. Similarly, according to ICMR studies, colon cancer affects 8.9% of all cancer patients in West Bengal cancer which is caused by ill eating habits or the consumption of foods that are low in antioxidants. 5-10% of colon cancers are genetically caused, while the remainder are caused by poor eating habits or the consumption of foods that are low in antioxidants. To address these issues, one strategy is to eat foods with a low glycemic index and high antioxidant content as a staple food. The tuber tissues of the potato (S. tuberosum L.) accumulate various quantities of anthocyanins, which are commonly consumed around the world. Anthocyanins are pigments that range in colour from red to purple and are found throughout the plant kingdom. Anthocyanins are powerful antioxidants that are water soluble. The red skin potato is well-known among the general public. The epidermal layer contains a high quantity of red anthocyanins, which causes the skin to be red. With this background the present study has been undertaken to address the following objectives morphological (quantitative and qualitative traits) and biochemical characterization of local potato cultivars and identification of most stable genotypes based on the anthocyanin content and tuber yield of local potato cultivars. For our recent research 14 local potato cultivar from North Bengal were collected and evaluated for DUS characterization showed wide range of variability with respect to different phenotypic variants of ten characters. Overall predominant DUS characters of local potato cultivars found in North Bengal are medium sized apical length of sprout, short stem height, compact foliage structure, open leaf structure, ovate lanceolate type leaflet shape, purple leaf sprout predominant colour, spherical leaf sprout shape, medium intensity of anthicyanin coloraton at the base, light intensity of anthicyanin coloraton at the tip and weak nature of light sprout pubescence base. The results of the present investigation suggest that local potato cultivars collected from the northern part of West Bengal showed a high level of genetic variation. The differences between genotypes were highly significant at the 1% and 5% alpha level for all characters like tuber yield, length and weight of tuber, length of sprout, chlorophyll content, canopy temperature, and number of tuber per plant, according to the analysis of variance. Three quantitative traits namely tuber yield, tuber breadth, tuber length played major role in the genetic variance. Anthocyanin content had more contribution to diversify the local potato cultures according to biochemical characterization AMMI analysis suggested that Jalpai from CoochBehar is the most stable potato cultivars in respect to anthocyanin content and tuber yield per plant.