Abstract:

Sweetpotato is considered as one of important crops for food, feed and industrial materials in the world. China is the largest sweetpotato producer in the world. This paper summarizes history, present situation, main achievement, problems of sweetpotato production and seed industry in China, analyzes the development trend of sweetpotato production and seed industry of the world, and puts forward the future development goal and task in China. At present, the sweetpotato production has developed steadily in China. The planting area tends to be stable, and the annual planting area is about 400 million hectares. The yield has steadily increased and reached to 1.96 times of the world average. The production has realized the transformation and upgrading from quantity to quality. The table use market is increasing continuously, and sweetpotato is well received. Snacks, healthy and functional foods are moderately developed. As the consumption increased, the benefit of sweetpotato planting is raised. The sweetpotato brand has been greatly developed. On the supports of China Agricultural Research System, Sweetpotato (CARS-SP), the molecular breeding platform of sweetpotato has been established, the genome sequencing of sweetpotato has been mainly completed, the high density molecular linkage map has been constructed, molecular markers and QTLs related to stem nematode resistance and starch content have been developed, and some important functional genes related to quality, disease resistance, salt tolerance and drought resistance have been discovered. The platform was constructed for diseases identification and varieties evaluation, and a set of new germplasm and varieties were created and released. More than 95% varieties planted in China were domestic. The national standard and industry standard of new sweetpotato varieties were established for DUS testing to standardize the seed and seedling market. The key technology research was completed for virus-free seed and seedling production. The cooperative innovation system was established to promote the reorganization of seed and seedling enterprises by combining producers, educators and researchers. There are still many problems in sweetpotato production and seed industry in China now. First is the number of excellent germplasm is small, which can’t meet the demand of breeding. Second is the lack of evaluation index of high quality varieties, and less specialized varieties to meet processing demand. The third is the less application of virus-free seed and seedlings, and the propagation technology and market of seed and seedling are not standardized. The fourth is small scale seed industry, weak support from government, and small number of regional seed and seedling enterprises to meet the needs of production. In the next 5-10 years, we should pay attention to construction platform of resource collection, evaluation and preservation, build up public service platform for sweetpotato breeding, release and demonstrate high-quality, high-yield and multi-resistance varieties, construct breeding-propagation-extension system, further extend the processing chain and improve industrial efficiency, and demonstrate varieties with high-quality starch, rich in dietary fiber, anthocyanin, carotene and polyphenols in the “One-Belt and One-Road” countries.

Key words: sweetpotato, production, seed industry, status, future prospective