Hybrid cassava varieties yield 5 times higher

Creating a new hybrid variety from different cassava species could be a new way to improve this crop's productivity to benefit about 8 million people worldwide, Brazilian scientists said.

The study was published in HortScience. Accordingly, when combining the wild variety of Manihot Fortalezensis, it is able to withstand drought and good stem borers, but tubers are not edible with M.esculenta UNB 201 cassava variety , a kind of cassava with nutritional content but low productivity, easy to be affected by drought and pests, can create a hybrid variety that combines the advantages of these two varieties.

New hybrid varieties increase productivity by 5 times compared to conventional cassava varieties. If cassava M. esculenta UNB 201 only produces 4-5 tubers with a weight of 2-3 kg, then it can produce 7-8 edible roots with a total weight of 10-12kg when crossed with M.fortalezensis. At the same time inheriting the characteristics of roots deep into the soil from wild cassava varieties, hybrid cassava will be more drought resistant and grow stronger than the parent cassava varieties.

Hybrid cassava is both tolerant of drought, good disease resistance and 5 times higher yield. (Illustration)

However, until now, researchers have created 18 hybrid cassava plants. At the same time, the cassava roots also have the smell of hydrogen cyanide acid (HCN) that can be toxic if it is not known how to handle cassava tubers properly.

However, the creation of hybrid varieties also poses less risk to human health and is more environmentally friendly than genetically modified plants. Moreover, this cassava variety can be grown easily on a large scale and provides many food sources for farmers.

Now scientists are continuing to research and further develop hybrid varieties. They plan to expand this breeding method to other crops.

Reference: Scidev