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Nutrient-Dense Orange-Fleshed Sweetpotato: Advances in Drought-Tolerance Breeding and Understanding of Management Practices for Sustainable Next-Generation Cropping Systems in Sub-Saharan Africa

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Relation http://oar.icrisat.org/11556/
https://doi.org/10.3389/fsufs.2020.00050
doi:10.3389/fsufs.2020.00050
 
Title Nutrient-Dense Orange-Fleshed Sweetpotato: Advances in Drought-Tolerance Breeding and Understanding of Management Practices for Sustainable Next-Generation Cropping Systems in Sub-Saharan Africa
 
Creator Low, J W
Ortiz, R
Vandamme, E
Andrade, M
Biazin, B
Grüneberg, W J
 
Subject Drought Tolerance
Plant Breeding
Cropping and Farming Systems
 
Description Almost half of children < 5 years old living in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) suffer from vitamin A deficiency and 60% suffer from iron deficiency. Thus, there has been a strong
commitment to breeding for, promoting awareness of, and delivering adapted pro-vitamin A rich orange-fleshed sweetpotato (OFSP) in SSA during the past two decades and
for enhanced iron content since 2014. This review article focuses on major breeding efforts in SSA to enhance the drought tolerance of OFSP and reviews integrated crop
management practices for improved and sustained sweetpotato production in SSA farming systems. Under climate change, the frequency and severity of droughts is expected to increase. Technical issues are presented in the context of addressing challenges along the entire value chain to ensure adoption. First, the use of an accelerated breeding scheme reduced the breeding cycle from 8–10 to 4–5 years.
Since 2010, 19 drought-tolerant OFSP cultivars have been released in Mozambique, 7 in Malawi, and 2 in South Africa. Moreover, research in four breeding populations
using the heterosis exploiting breeding scheme (HEBS) demonstrated that within one breeding cycle of 5 years, clones with significantly higher root yield, abiotic tolerance, host plant resistance to pests and diseases, and early maturity can be produced. In the future, HEBS will be combined with greater use of modern genomic tools,
new phenotyping tools, and CRISPR/Cas9-mediated gene editing. Second, beyond genetic enhancements, evidence is presented that using improved crop management
systems, existing sweet potato yields can be increased 2–4 times. Current knowledge is reviewed concerning sweetpotato’s role in diverse farming systems, but integrated crop management is clearly under researched. Third, the outlook for drought tolerance breeding indicates that two distinct classes of nutrient-rich cultivars are emerging: (1) Early maturing cultivars (< 4 month growing period) that escape drought but also serve humid environments with small landholding size per capita; and (2) Medium maturing (4–6 month growing period) cultivars that avoid drought, are drought tolerant and exhibit
continuous root formation. Increasing commercialization of the crop and climate change will drive demand, and the willingness of farmers to invest in improved sweetpotato
crop management.
 
Publisher Frontiers Media
 
Date 2020-05
 
Type Article
PeerReviewed
 
Format application/pdf
 
Language en
 
Identifier http://oar.icrisat.org/11556/1/low_jw_et_al_200513.pdf
Low, J W and Ortiz, R and Vandamme, E and Andrade, M and Biazin, B and Grüneberg, W J (2020) Nutrient-Dense Orange-Fleshed Sweetpotato: Advances in Drought-Tolerance Breeding and Understanding of Management Practices for Sustainable Next-Generation Cropping Systems in Sub-Saharan Africa. Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems, 4. pp. 1-22. ISSN 2571-581X