Fusarium wilt is caused by the soil borne fungus (Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. batatas) and affects sweetpotato by causing significant damage to crop yield and quality. The use of resistant cultivars is one of the most effective ways to reduce disease incidence. Screening for the disease is time-consuming and resource-draining. Trait-linked molecular markers represent an efficient, stable, and alternative screening approach. In this study, a genome-wide association study (GWAS) was conducted on a Louisiana sweetpotato breeding population to identify novel loci associated with Fusarium wilt resistance and to gain insights underlying resistance. Phenotypic data for disease traits were collected for 254 F 1 diverse lines over two years. The sweetpotato accessions were genotyped using the 3K DArTag® marker panel. GWAS identified one marker that was significantly associated with Fusarium wilt resistance, providing putative target for future validation and potential use in marker-assisted selection (MAS). These findings offer valuable resources for MAS and lay the groundwork for developing Fusarium wilt-resistant sweetpotato cultivars.
Dhungana et al. (Wed,) studied this question.