Kyushu Okinawa Agricultural Research Center, NARO

The export of sweet potato has increased rapidly in recent years and is expected to expand further. However, damage from foot rot disease of sweet potato has increased, and there are concerns about the collapse of production centers and the maintenance of local industries in the Nansei Islands and southern Kyushu. The outflow of seeds and seedlings overseas has also become a problem.
When farmhouse fields are affected bu Sugarcane smut, it causes not only large decrease in yield, but also problems such as the inability to cultivate stocks in infected fields next year.
. So, the Sweet potato and Sugarcane Breeding Group is engaged in,

• Cultivation of sweet potato varieties resistant to foot rot,
• Development of identification technology for foot rot resistance and varieties of kansho using DNA markers,
• Cultivation of sugarcane strain resistant to smut etc.,

These technological developments will contribute to the stable production and export of sweet potato, the promotion of genome breeding, the prevention of the outflow of seeds overseas, and the stable production of sugar cane.