Evening star., 1938-11-19
Of Stors, Men
And Atoms
Notebook Of Science Progress
In Field, Laboratory
And Study
Bu Thomas r. Henrn.


course OF empire is taking its way-but
"empire," like an army, must travel on
its stomach.
Perhaps the most notable example OF
this northward progress Is the indus
trialization Of the frigid Kola PENN
sula above the Arctic Circle by the
Soviet government, which seeks to take
advantage of the rich mineral resources.
Cities have sprung up, but cities need
truck gardens and in that region the
temperature sometimes sinks to around
Is F., the killing frost stage, in early
August.
So the government has set up an Arc
tic plant breeding station there and
from this station have just come re-
ports Of the first success in breeding
potato highly resistant to freezing. At
elevations as high as 5000 feet in the
Andes the Russian plant explorer S. V.
Juzepezuk found wild potato, which
less than killing frost during its bios
soming season. With dark green leaves
more than twice as thick as ordinary
potato leaves growing in rosette which
almost hugs the ground, this vegetable
WithStood cold of 18 F. without apparent
injury in North Russia.
1t bears tubers, however, only under
the l2-hour day of the equatorial regions
and only barren roots under the 24-hour
day of North Russia's summer. 1t pro-
duced, however, an abundance of seed
balls, according to the account just pub
lished in the Complies Rendus of the
Soviet Academy of Sciences by L. A.
Dremliug, one of the staff OF the polar
station.
Six years ago, after many futile at
tempts, the first successful cross was
made between this wild potato and a
variety of the potato of agriculture,
Solanum tuberosum The cross was less
frost resistant than the wild plant of
the high Andes, but still it WithStood
temperatures of q F. without injury.
The hybrid remained however, short
day potato. Transferred from the
Soviet Potato Institute garden at Mos
COW to the Kola Peninsula, it produced
seedballS, but not tubers. The next step
was to make a cross between this hybrid
and another variety of Solanum tubero-
sum, thus producing a triple hybrid with
two-thirds of its genes those of the do
mestic vegetable.
This was accomplished only with great
difficulty. The experiment finally sue
ceeded, according to DR.. Dremliug'S ac-
count, only when the cross was made
at the end of August when the tempera-
ture was steadily close to the freezing
point. Only very few seeds were OBJ
tanned, only seven of these produced
plants when planted the next year, and
only two of these plants yielded any
tubers The tubers themselves were
about the size of hickory nuts.
When these were used as seed pota-
toes the next year, however. the results
were quite different. The plants which
sprang from the cuttings reSembled the
Andean ancestor in their dark green,
thick leaves growing in a ground-hug-
ging rosette. They flowered in profusion
and bore seed balls. The tuber produc-
ton under longday conditions remained
inconsequential, but when the plants
were grown in cold frames in which the
light could be regulated. they produced
good yields. They Withstood tempera-
lures of Is F..
The problem of obtaining good yield
in the open field still remains to be solved
but it has now been advanced to the
next Stage-the back-crossing with other
varieties of the domestic potato. The
Soviet botanists have high hopes that
one or another of the crosses will yield
a long day potato which will retain the
tato of the Andes.
They have apparently, DR.. Dremliug
says, crossed the first great hurdle of
producing fertile crosses. The flowers
must be pollenated at close to freezing
temperatures. The cold resistant quail
ity of the triple hybrid is apparently
associated in some way, he says, with
the fact that it has double the number
of chromosomes in all its tissue cells as
does the ordinary potato. About the
same affects as are achieved with COL
chichine by American experimenters, he
believes, are brought about by the hy-
bridization in frigid temperatures.
Successful breeding of frost-resistant
potato might we'll be the turning point
in the history of the Far North, both in
the Old and New Worlds. The eyes of
Canada as we'll as those of Russia are
turned northward and the great Arctic
empire of Alaska remains largely virgin
territory. Canadian pioneers and mis-
sionaries have grown potatoes success
fully north of co." it was reported at
the American Association for the Ad-
vancement of Science meetings at Ot-
tawa last summer But as yet the crop
is indispensable and an early, severe
frost will ruin 1t.
N