Morphological Characterization of Ugandan Sweetpotato Germplasm

Sweetpotato [Ipomoea batatas (L.) Lam] is a widely grown and consumed root crop in Uganda. A total of 1303 accessions of sweetpotato germplasm collected from 21 districts of Uganda were planted for morphological characterization. Forty morphological descriptors were scored on 1256 accessions 90 to 100 d after planting. Stepwise discriminant analysis showed that the discriminating power of 20 morphological traits was sufficient to differentiate the accessions. The level of morphological variation for the 40 traits estimated using the Shannon Weaver diversity index (H') ranged from 0.10 to 0.99, with an overall mean of 0.71 ±0.03, suggesting a highly diverse collection. Cluster analysis using the unweighted pair‐group method using arithmetic averages grouped the 1256 accessions into 20 major clusters, with the number of accessions per cluster ranging from 15 to 166. The general leaf outline was highly correlated with leaf lobe type (r = 0.79) and leaf lobe number (r = 0.80) and were the predominant characters in grouping the accessions to clusters. No grouping of accessions based on region of origin was observed, suggesting movement of germplasm between regions. Approximately 70% of the accessions were morphologically distinct and a collection of 946 accessions was selected to represent Ugandan sweetpotato landrace diversity. The complete passport data for this collection is available at: http://www.viazivitamu.org/ugasp_db/gis.htm