Analyse van aardappelpopulaties ten dienste van de veredeling

A method was worked out for roughly predicting time of ripening of seedlings a few weeks after sowing. The method was tested by growing seedlings for several consecutive years and the clonal generations were studied and analysed for many other characters. Descriptions included both specific characters and general impression of the whole clones at various stages in successive years. The data were used to evaluate the practice of breeders of maintaining selection only on material which visually conforms to most of their objectives.

To avoid or diminish the risk that many valuable clones would be lost the author suggested as a more rational procedure to raise fewer first-year seedlings, to classify these seedlings according to foliage length as a means of estimating approximate maturity in an early stage and to discard only the poor clones instead of retaining only the 'good' ones, until a sufficient number of tubers is available for trials which are statistically sound.