Gaynor McKenzie
01382 568737
James Hutton Institute
Errol Road
Dundee
Scotland
DD2 5DA
Biography
My current role involves the curation of the Commonwealth Potato Collection, I am the potato glasshouse and germplasm manager. The commonwealth potato collection comprises of around 1524 seed-based accessions of tuber-bearing Solanum accessions representing over 90 different potato species (https://ics.hutton.ac.uk/germinate-cpc/#home). Two thirds of the collection are wild relatives of the potato and the remainder are landraces of cultivated potato from South America. The wild species represent adaptation to a very broad range of biotic and abiotic challenges and are of great value for potato breeding. I am also responsible for the maintenance/rejuvenation of research populations derived from this material.
In addition to this I also work closely with James Hutton Limited potato breeders to produce the true potato seed (TPS) for commercial companies.