Currently, Kenya’s average potato yield per hectare is around ten tons. According to Anthony Kibe, principal investigator of a potato community action research project led by Uganda-based Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture, it has the potential to increase to three times that amount with the use of disease-free seeds.
The forum’s project in Kenya — one of 11 across Africa — has benefitted about 5,000 smallholders since starting in 2017. It gives farmers access to quality, seeds through a process called tissue culture — the cultivation of plant tissues or organs on specially formulated nutrient solution in a laboratory or controlled environment.
“Tissue culture offers an excellent technique for the rapid propagation of seed potato, offering high yielding disease-free planting materials,” says Kibe. Tissue culture produces plantlets also known as apical root cuttings, and mini tubers (tiny potato seeds) which are clean and free of disease, Kibe explains, adding that the technology speeds up the multiplication of material to facilitate distribution and large-scale planting.
Tissue culture technology is applied in the production of disease-free and high-yielding fruits and vegetables in East Africa, including bananas.
Source: scidev.net