Two new varieties of sweet potatoes released

By LARRY ANDREW
TWO new varieties of kaukau (sweet potatoes) were released on Wednesday by the National Agriculture Research Institute coinciding with the 10th Agricultural Innovations Show.
They are the high-yielding and better-performing Nari Sweet Potato 1 (NSP1 and Nari Sweet Potato 2 (NSP 2).
The varieties can be grown in both coastal and Highlands areas, however, Nari SP1 with its high-yield is for the coast and Nari SP2 is for the Highlands.
Nari deputy director-general Dr Akkinapally Ramakrishna said kaukau was the most-important crop in PNG which was irreplaceable.
He said kaukau was more nutritional than rice.
“We started this journey more than 10 years with the project supported by Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (Aciar),” Ramakrishna said.
“The process in hybriding the sweet potato is call poly-crossing and is simple: Putting 20 male and 20 female together, allowing them to meet randomly.
“With the poly-crossing, 60,000 seedlings were produced.
“These 60,000 are a long way to find out which is good and which is not, and the qualities they have. We had to do a number of trials.”
Ramakrishna said seven years of trial from 2008 to 2015 was a long journey involving people who had a passion.
Nari identified 12 varieties that performed better and gave higher yields, and separated them into two different groups for Highlands’ and coastal climates.