The National Agriculture and Food Research Organization (NARO) has developed a new sweet potato cultivar, "Yukikomachi". This cultivar is characterized by good quality with high yield and can be harvested even in cool regions . In order to cope up with the increasing demand and shortage of sweet potatoes in recent years, this cultivar can be expected to be useful for the formation of new production areas in cool regions where economic cultivation of sweet potatoes has been considered difficult.
Overview
With the boom of baked sweet potato in recent years, the domestic demand for sweet potato, as a fruit and vegetable, is increasing along with the rapid export expansion. However, in Japan, the cultivation area of sweet potatoes is decreasing year by year due to pest occurrence and aging of producers.
Currently, the main production areas in Japan are Kagoshima prefecture, Miyazaki prefecture in Kyushu, Ibaraki prefecture in Kanto, and Chiba prefecture. These four prefectures account for about 70% of the total production. The sweet potatoes are vulnerable to the cool climate. Hence Fukushima prefecture has been regarded as the northern limit of economic cultivation. In recent years, there has been a tendency for the temperature to increase in summer due to global warming. Therefore, cultivation in cool regions, that were previously regarded as unsuitable for cultivation, are also increasing. However, it has been difficult to achieve stable production of high-quality sweet potatoes when cultivated in cool regions.
Therefore, NARO has developed a new cultivar "Yukikomachi" that has higher yield than conventional varieties and can be cultivated even in cool regions. The introduction of this cultivar will enable the formation of new production areas even in cool regions such as Hokkaido and expected to lead to the strengthening of the sweet potato production base.
Seedlings of "Yukikomachi" cultivar will be supplied through private seedling companies that have signed license agreement with NARO.
For Inquiries
Contact: http://www.naro.go.jp/english/inquiry/index.html
