Predicting starch content in cassava fresh roots using near-infrared spectroscopy.

The cassava starch market is promising in sub-Saharan Africa and increasing rapidly due to the numerous uses of starch in food industries. More accurate, high-throughput, and cost-effective phenotyping approaches could hasten the development of cassava varieties with high starch content to meet the growing market demand. This study investigated the effectiveness of a pocket-sized SCiO™ molecular sensor (SCiO) (740-1070 nm) to predict starch content in freshly ground cassava roots.

High-resolution mapping of resistance to cassava mosaic geminiviruses in cassava using genotyping-by-sequencing and its implications for breeding.

Cassava mosaic disease (CMD), caused by different species of cassava mosaic geminiviruses (CMGs), is the most important disease of cassava in Africa and the Indian sub-continent. The cultivated cassava species is protected from CMD by polygenic resistance introgressed from the wild species Manihot glaziovii and a dominant monogenic type of resistance, named CMD2, discovered in African landraces. The ability of the monogenic resistance to confer high levels of resistance in different genetic backgrounds has led recently to its extensive usage in breeding across Africa as well as pre-emptive breeding in Latin America.