S6-03
Genetic Potential to Improve Carotene Content of Cassava and Strategies
for its Deployment
Bedoya J.M., J Echeverri, A.L. Chávez, H. Ceballos, J. Tohme and T.
Sánchez
International
Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), Cali, Colombia h.ceballos@cgiar.org
Over
100 million preschool-age children suffer from vitamin A deficiency, the
single most important cause of blindness in children, which is also
widespread among women in the reproductive age.
Variability of vitamin A in the roots and leaves of different
cassava genotypes were evaluated, as well as the stability of the
vitamin after processing by three methods.
The concentrations of the vitamin in the leaves were considerably
higher, ranging from 12.05 to 96.42 mg/100 g FW than in the roots that
contained between 0.10 and 1.04 mg/100 g FW.
Stability of the vitamin after processing ranged between 40% and
61%. Preliminary results
suggest that high concentration of the vitamin delays the onset of
physiological deterioration in the roots.
Different strategies are underway for successfully deploying
high-carotene cassava varieties. For
Africa, high carotene content will be combined with resistance to the
cassava mosaic disease in collaboration with IITA.
For the Americas and Asia, high vitamin A varieties will also be
targeted to special food preparations, the snacks industry and animal
feed. The trait is
controlled by few genes and it is, therefore, suitable for transfer from
clone to clone through genetic transformation.
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