Field Crop 2025, Vol.8, No.1, 11-19 http://cropscipublisher.com/index.php/fc 12 recent years, technological development has indeed brought a lot of new tricks. Gene editing technologies such as CRISPR/Cas9 can now produce enhanced varieties without exogenous genes (Hameed et al., 2018). Of course, traditional methods have not been completely replaced-the combination of the two is even more effective. In particular, orange-fleshed sweet potatoes have been greatly helped in some African countries after being genetically enhanced with vitamin A content (Garg et al., 2018). Although the planting conditions in different places vary greatly, with the help of genome sequencing technology, it is indeed much faster to find key genes. But then again, the promotion of new technologies always takes time, and practical problems such as farmers' acceptance and planting costs still need to be solved step by step. 2.2 Selection and integration of target nutrients Sweet potato breeding is actually quite particular-what nutrients to choose for fortification depends on what the local people lack. For example, the orange-fleshed variety (OFSP) has a particularly high content of β-carotene, which is particularly effective in improving vitamin A deficiency. But what's interesting is that although the white-fleshed variety (WFSP) is plain in color, it has a higher carbohydrate content and can provide more energy (Shekhar et al., 2015). Now the breeding methods have also been upgraded and no longer rely solely on manual screening. New tools such as portable mid-infrared spectroscopy can quickly detect components such as anthocyanins and phenols (Ayvaz et al., 2016), which should also be quite suitable for sweet potato breeding. Of course, different regions have different needs. For example, in some places where children are severely stunted, it is necessary to focus on fortifying iron and zinc (Ojwang' et al., 2023). In the final analysis, it is necessary to make sweet potatoes more nutritious and ensure that they are easy to grow and high-yielding, so that farmers are willing to grow them. 3 Agronomic Performance Evaluation 3.1 Field trial layout and experimental design Field trials are actually quite laborious-after all, it takes more than one planting to evaluate whether these nutritionally fortified sweet potatoes are effective. We usually use a randomized block design, and we must do multiple replications (Lemma et al., 2023), otherwise the data is simply unreadable. Take orange-fleshed varieties, such as Kabode and Dilla, for example. They must be arranged in a 5×3×2 alpha grid design, with at least three replications for each. But what's interesting is that some varieties perform particularly well under specific conditions. There is also an even more exaggerated experiment that used 95 different germplasms plus 2 commercial control varieties (Vargas et al., 2017), also with three replications. Although the workload is a bit large, this is the only way to see the true agronomic performance of these varieties under different fertilization conditions. 3.2 Growth performance of nutrient-enriched sweet potatoes Fertilization has a significant impact on sweet potatoes, especially the ratio of nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizers. Take the NASPOT-12 variety for example. It performed best when 23 kg of nitrogen and 46 kg of phosphorus pentoxide per hectare were used (Brouwer et al., 2023)-not only did the yield increase, but the nutrient absorption efficiency was also improved. But what's interesting is that different varieties respond differently. For example, Dilla can harvest more than 23 tons per hectare under optimized management, which is slightly higher than Alamura (Mekonnen, 2021). This shows that if you want a good harvest, it is not enough to just choose the right variety. The fertilizer combination must also be exquisite and the balance point must be found. When it comes to growing sweet potatoes, disease resistance is key-especially that annoying sweet potato virus disease (SPVD). Interestingly, varieties like Dilla and Alamura (Mekonnen, 2021) are naturally more resistant to diseases, so they grow particularly well. But then again, the variety's own resistance is not enough, and we have found that organic control methods are also very effective against diseases such as sclerotinia (Rempelos et al., 2023). So, in order to cultivate sweet potato varieties that are both nutritious and high-yielding, disease resistance is really a key consideration, after all, pests and diseases directly affect the harvest.
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