What is it about?
Diversity found in the farmer fields is important for maintenance of biodiversity. The study has shown existence of high morphological variability that exists among cassava landraces. The study also confirmed that farmers were knowledgeable in identifying and distinguishing landraces found in their field and they play a significant role in shaping the biodiversity by growing diverse landraces in their farms
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Why is it important?
Cassava germplasm collection is important for preservation of genetic variability, allowing the development of improved cultivars with desirable traits such as drought and disease tolerance, better starch quality and yield. Hence assessing diversity in cassava germplasm maintained by farmers is important for maintaining biodiversity and crop improvement. in this study both morphological and single nucleotide polymorphism markers were used to assess diversity found in h farmer field.
Perspectives
The study showed the importance of assess the farmers germplasm collection. Our study also confirms the power of Next generation Sequence techniques for diversity assessment and gene trait association studies .
Dr Mariam Kom Mtunguja
Mikocheni Agricultural Research Institute
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Genetic diversity of farmer-preferred cassava landraces in Tanzania based on morphological descriptors and single nucleotide polymorphisms, Plant Genetic Resources, November 2015, Cambridge University Press,
DOI: 10.1017/s1479262115000453.
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