Clone Breeding

Some crops such as potato are not propagated sexually by means of crossing, but asexually - i.e. vegetative reproduction via tissue culture, tubers or stecklings. This results in clones, i.e. in genetically identical plants.

Breeding of a clone variety, e.g. a new potato variety, begins with a sexual reproduction step in which  parent plants with interesting traits are being crossed. The resulting offspring consists of plants with new combinations of desired genetic properties. The performance of this offspring will be tested, since every seedling is a possible candidate variety. Suitable offspring plants will subsequently be propagated only vegetatively as clones.