Uganda: Sweet potato weevil resistance

Mainstreaming quality traits and sweet potato weevil resistance in development of farmer preferred sweet potato varieties in Uganda

Sweet potato is an important food security crop whose potential has not been fully exploited in Uganda due to severe SPW damage and limited diversification of utilization. To spur the development of processing type orange-fleshed sweet potato varieties (OFSP), this project seeks to identify superior parental germplasm for inclusion in the breeding pipeline. SPWs cause up to 100% yield losses. The precision of SPW phenotyping through digital applications will be critical for rapid improvement of SPW resistance.

Research objectives include:

1. To assemble, profile and identify sweet potato germplasm with processing and quality traits for use in developing farmer preferred varieties
2. To modernize phenotyping of sweet potato weevil (SPW) resistance for enhancing rapid variety development
3. To profile the Ugandan sweet potato germplasm and introductions for total hydroxycinnamic acid esters for selection of parents for with SPW resistance