DEVELOPING AN EFFICIENT AND EFFECTIVE VIRUS CLEANING FOR

SWEET POTATOPRESENTER: STEPHEN KHISA

REF: NO. A138/22061/2012

SUPERVISOR NAME: Dr. D. MIANOCOURSE: DIPLOMA IN CROP

PROTECTION

INTRODUCTION

Sweet potato is one of the food crops which was discovered in central America in Peru and Mayan area in year about 2000BC

It is grown in 111 countries of which 101 are classified as developing nations

Sweet potato in Africa is grown in areas of high and low rainfall. This is in sub-Saharan Africa.

Importance of sweet potato

It promotes food security in developed and developing nations

It also promotes growth in the developing nations.

It improves health status of people growing sweet potato.

Sweet potato is also used as animal feeds.

It is also used as cover crop to control weeds.

The problems facing sweet potato productionPrevalence of virus diseases and pests, which reduces the yields in production.

Due to prevalence of diseases and pests, the poverty level will increase in developing nations.Examples affecting sweet potato:Sweet potato feathery mottle virusSweet potato latent virusSweet potato chlorotic virus

The causal agentThe plant viruses are spread from plant to plant by the vectors which are; nematodes and insects.

Justification of proposed projectInitially, the process of cleaning sweet potato viruses takes a long period from 3 – 6 months to obtain a virus free material.Not all inoculated meristems will develop into a plant.Small meristems inoculayed dry up in the culture room.

General objectivesTo reduce the cleaning period from 6 months to 3 months

Specific objectiveTo determine the effective level of temperature in cleaning viruses.To determine the conditions that favour the plants to grow faster than the virus.To determine the light intensity that can promote the plant growth.

Materials and methodsThermotherapy and growth chambers are used for treating viruses.Synthetic media-murashige and skoog medium amd vitaminsTest tubesEnclosed glass houseCultivars sourced from Kephis Muguga.