The potato is an important plant model. Although non-crop models, such as the ubiquitous, Arabidopsis, offer certain research advantages, namely small, relatively simple genomes, they do little to answer the most pertinent agricultural questions. In this respect, potato has several biological features that make it an attractive model for study.

Like many other important crops, potato is a polyploid. The effect of polyploidy on crop production has yet to be determined, but its prevalence in crop species suggests certain advantages. Potato is an ideal polyploid for study in that it results from genome doublings (autopolyploidy) rather than genome combinations (allopolyploidy) and is therefore less complex. Unlike Arabidopsis, potato is also heterozygous, a characteristic that contributes to potato's extreme genetic diversity and has probably been a key factor in potato's survival.