The global breeding programme for taro (Colocasia esculenta) and cocoyam (Xanthosoma sagittifolium) is gathering pace. The International Network for Edible Aroids (INEA) is part of the five-year project Adapting clonally propagated crops to climatic and commercial changes funded by the European Union (EU).
Implemented by the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) and the French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development, in collaboration with the Vanuatu Agricultural Research Training Centre, the breeding programme is a major component of the project, with 15 partners in Europe, Africa, the Caribbean, Asia and the Pacific.
In the Pacific, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu and Samoa are members of the project and are actively carrying out breeding activities, with good progress so far.
The taro lines provided by SPC Centre for Pacific Crops and Trees (CePaCT), in particular the Samoan breeding lines, have been rated highly worldwide for taste, yield and vigour over the local varieties. Importantly, they are tolerant to taro leaf blight (Phytophthora colocasiae).
These lines, which are part of the taro collection supported by funds from the Global Crop Diversity Trust, have been widely distributed by CePaCT under the auspices of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture.
Moafanua Tolo Iosefa, SPC plant breeder based in Samoa, and also a local coordinator for the Pacific Agribusiness Research for Development Initiative and INEA projects, has successfully developed these breeding lines using Pacific and Asian varieties.
The breeding in INEA country partners is supported by Professor Anton Ivancic, a plant breeder, who will visit partners, including some in the Pacific. He recently visited Cuba and trained local scientists to germinate and raise seeds of taro from Vanuatu.
Other members of INEA reported good progress on breeding. In Nigeria, Dr Charles Amadi, plant breeder, succeeded in pollinating taro flowers, which was possibly a first for Africa.
India started breeding taro more than 30 years ago and Indonesia more than ten years ago. Costa Rica, Burkina Faso, and Madagascar have recently started, with crosses between taro lines provided by SPC CePaCT and local, wild taro. The local varieties do not flower naturally and will need to be treated with gibberellic acid to induce it.
In Indonesia, the breeding programme has recently produced hybrids between Samoan lines and local cultivars. The programme also involves exchange of open pollinated seeds. Taro seeds from India have been germinating well in Vanuatu. Both Indonesia and India have requested seeds from Vanuatu.
The INEA global project is unique for the Pacific region, being multi-regional, multi-institutional and multi-partner. It includes several work packages: in vitro culture and distribution, breeding and on-farm selection and evaluation, DNA fingerprinting, drought resistance, physico-chemical characterisation and analysis, and virus detection.
The Pacific region, through SPC and the French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development, is coordinating the project.
For more information contact: Valerie S Tuia, SPC Genetic Resources Coordinator/INEA Manager valeriet@spc.int; Dr Vincent Lebot, Scientific Coordinator INEA lebot@vanuatu.com.vu; Dr Graham Jackson, INEA Communication/Website coordinator, SPC LRD helpdesk lrdhelpdesk@spc.int
