‘RW11-17’, ‘RW11-1860’, ‘RW11-2419’, ‘RW11-2560’, ‘RW11-2910’, and ‘RW11-4923’ Sweetpotato

Abstract

Sweetpotato forms a major part of the diet of both rural and urban communities in Rwanda. Moreover, the crop is expected to become more important with time as farmers engaged in mixed crop-livestock systems increasingly use vines as animal feed. Its use for both food and feed makes it attractive in areas where land availability is a constraint. Moreover, the implementation of the Rwandese government policy, which encourages use of zero grazing practice to mitigate soil erosion, emphasizes the use of sweetpotato as an alternative source of animal forage (MINAGRI, 2013).The six released cultivars have relatively high dry matter content (30%) and have good to high consumer acceptance. The cultivars also have moderate to high levels of field resistance to sweetpotato virus disease (SPVD) and Alternaria bataticola blight and yield higher (8.3 to 22.8 t • ha -1 ) than the average storage root yield of 6.0 t • ha -1 [FAOSTAT, 2011; International Potato Center (CIP), 1999]. Two of the released cultivars, RW11-2910 and RW11-2560, are orange-fleshed sweetpotato (OFSP), providing consumers with moderate to high beta-carotene (provitamin A) with potential to alleviate vitamin A deficiency. Thus, the official release of these dual-purpose sweetpotato cultivars for both food and animal feed, developed through on-station evaluation and farmer participatory selection, to augment the food and farming systems in Rwanda is reported.

Genotype-by-environment interaction of newly-developed sweet potato genotypes for storage root yield, yield-related traits and resistance to sweet potato virus disease

“…Cultivation of the identified genotypes may be recommended to increase sweet potato production in Tanzania. Findings of this study agree with previous reports which developed sweet potato genotypes combining SPVD resistance with high yield potential and dry matter content (Mwanga et al., 2009, 2011, 2016; Shumbusha et al., 2014). The genotypes indicated as G10, G16, G19, G6, G26, G21, G11, G17 and G8 were stable for SPVD resistance across test environments, useful for breeding for SPVD stability.…”

“…Genotypes such as G4, G5, G7, G8, G9, G11, G12, G13, G17, G18, G21, G23 and G26 exhibited SPVD values of ≤1.5, suggesting their resistance to SPVD. The level of SPVD resistance among the presently tested sweet potato clones is comparable and in some instances higher than previously released commercial cultivars and clones (Gwandu et al., 2012; Shumbusha et al., 2014; Mwanga et al., 2016; Gurmu et al., 2018).…”

“…(2013) reported larger contribution of the interaction effect than genotypic and environment effects for variation in root storage yield agreeing with the present findings. The observed variation in storage root yield is useful for selection and recommendation of promising genotypes in sweet potato improvement programmes (Laurie and Booyse, 2015; Mwanga et al., 2016; Shumbusha et al., 2014). A larger contribution of genotypic effects compared to environment and interaction effects for dry matter content (DMC) was observed in the present study.…”

“…PC1 accounted for 62% of the total variation, whereas PC2 explained 14% of total variation. Breeding for high dry matter content is an important breeding priority in sweet potato improvement programmes (Shumbusha et al., 2014). The GGE biplot in the current study revealed genotypes such as G26, G24, G19, G10 and G13 as relatively stable for dry matter content with relatively low PC2 scores.…”

Development of a food product profile for boiled and steamed sweetpotato in Uganda for effective breeding

“…In sub‐Saharan Africa (SSA), major advances in breeding sweetpotato have led to the release of superior productive and nutritious varieties (Shumbusha et al ., 2014; Ssemakula et al ., 2014; Andrade et al ., 2016; Mwanga et al ., 2017). Contemporary breeding programmes focus mostly on agronomy‐related characteristics and less on end‐user preferences, resulting in slow adoption of improved varieties (Jenkins et al ., 2018).…”