‘RW11-17’, ‘RW11-1860’, ‘RW11-2419’, ‘RW11-2560’, ‘RW11-2910’, and ‘RW11-4923’ Sweetpotato

Six dual-purpose sweetpotato [Ipomoea batatas L. (Lam.)] cultivars, RW1117, RW111860, RW112419, RW112560, RW112910, and RW114923, were approved for release by the Plant Variety Release Committee of Rwanda in Feb. 2013 Sweetpotato forms a major part of the diet of both rural and urban communities in Rwanda. Moreover, the crop is expected to become more important with time as farmers engaged in mixed crop-livestock systems increasingly use vines as animal feed. Its use for both food and feed makes it attractive in areas where land availability is a constraint. Moreover, the implementation of the Rwandese government policy, which encourages use of zero grazing practice to mitigate soil erosion, emphasizes the use of sweetpotato as an alternative source of animal forage