الفهرس 
INTRODUCTIONOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Potato (Solanum tuberosum) belongs to the Solanaceae family. This family includes, among 3000–4000 other species, tomato (S. lycopersicum L.), sweet pepper (Capsicum annuum L.), eggplant (S. melongena L. var. esculentum), tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum L.), and petunia (Petunia hybrid L.). Potato is the most important species of this family for the global diet. Potato is one of the most consumed crops worldwide. It is grown in most countries of the world, approximately 140 countries. It contains 78% water, 18% starch, 2% protein, 1% vitamins and several trace elements and is used as a food, directly as fresh potato, or after processing into multiple products, such as French fries, chips, mashed potato, etc. and also as livestock feed (Haase, 2007; Bhutta, 2008). Today, potato is considered the world’s fourth food crop after maize (Zea mays L.), rice (Oryza sativa L.), and wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) in terms of production. The total world production was over 381 million tons in 2014 (FAOSTAT /2014). The Inca Indians in Peru were the first to cultivate potatoes. Before the end of the sixteenth century potato was spread to the rest of Europe via the Canary Islands, where the ships anchored on their way from America to Europe. In the following four centuries, potato cultivation slowly spread throughout Europe and, from there, to the rest of the world (Ríos et al., 2007; Gebhardt, 2016).