| Guangdong Province is one of the most predominant production regions of Chinese sweet potato（Ipomoea batatas）, in which high-quality edible fresh sweet potatoes have been mainly planted, produced, sold and consumed, and it is the country’s largest consumer market and distribution center for edible fresh sweet potato. In recent years, the cultivated area of sweet potato in Guangdong has been basically stable, with a statistical area of approximately 150 000 hm2, ranking fourth in the country. Considerable progress has been made in the improvement of sweet potato varieties in Guangdong since 2006. As of the end of 2019, 1981 sweet potato germplasm accessions has been preserved in the National Germplasm Nursery for Sweet potato（Guangzhou）; 33 selected sweet potato varieties have been examined and approved by the national variety verification or Guangdong variety identification, of which Guangshu 87 and Pushu 32 are two representative varieties, which have been widely planted in south China and even the whole country, and have made great contributions to the development of the sweet potato industry. In addition, rapid progress has also been made in breeding techniques including cross incompatibility, space mutation, disease and insect resistance, and sweet potato molecular biology. The previous work on the collection and utilization of sweet potato resources, breeding technologies and evaluation methods and breeding effectiveness since 2006 is reviewed, and prospect for future work is put forward. |
