Selection of sweetpotato cultivars with high yields in Almaty region, Kazakhstan

Abstract

Sweetpotato (Ipomoea batatas [L.] Lam) is an attractive and industrial starch crop for ensuring global food and nutrition security in the face of the climate crisis. To select the proper cultivar with high yields at Almaty region, Kazakhstan, seven sweetpotato cultivars with different coloured tuberous roots were cultivated in 2018, 2019 and 2020. The results show that quantitative indicators of sweetpotato growth in southeast Kazakhstan are significantly dependent on cultivars and climatic conditions of cultivation years. ‘A1’ (31.2 t/ha) and ‘Tainong 71’ (22.1 t/ha) cultivars may be good candidates for the mass cultivation of sweetpotato in the Almaty region. The contents of vitamin C showed a diversity (1.0~6.7 g/100 g) depending on cultivars. Regarding sucrose content, the cultivars showed an average of 5.6 and 7.4 g/100 g in 2018 and 2019, respectively. Sucrose was a major component of total soluble solids in the studied cultivars, which corresponds with other literary data. The best cultivation practice of sweetpotato including plastic filum mulching and fertilization remains to be studied to increase yields for commercial production in Kazakhstan.