AWARD - Study of the genetic determinism of post-harvest quality (ppd) in cassava

Cassava has gained global popularity for its combined, food, feed, fibre, and bio-fuel traits. However, for this gain to become a long term reality, postharvest physiological deterioration (PPD) of cassava roots must be solved. PPD reduces income generation in cassava at all levels and it is the most devastating problem of cassava. Scientific efforts have been initiated worldwide to minimize lost to PPP. As part of these efforts, PPD was evaluated among IITA cassava germplasm. To further this, we assessed genetic diversity among 251 of these accessions with for useful information on their structure using 26 SSR markers obtained from three publish ed genetic maps of cassava. The results obtained showed little or no structure with high heterozygosity (mean = 0.626) among the assessed cassava. Some accessions were also identified as replicates. There was a high diversity among the cassava accessions with extreme PPD values.