Potato is heterozygous, partly due to its outbreeding nature, making it suitable for different end-use (starch, table, processing etc.) but difficult to determine outcome of breeding.

Another challenge in breeding is how to manage autotetraploidy - a plant species whose chromosome complement consists of four copies of a single genome, a characteristic resulting from the doubling of an ancestral set of chromosomes. A technique to estimate breeding values (EBV) has been used frequently in animal breeding (improved cattle milk yield, pig slaughter weight etc.) but can also be applied to potato breeding. Ongoing projects have identified EBVs of parent cultivars for several traits (plant yield, maturity, total impression, skin finish). Using complimentary statistical analysis methodologies, it is possible to calculate breeding values from all plant relatives. These predictive values being used to support parent selections for breeding programmes.