The primary purpose of this agreement is to provide clean plants of sweetpotato cultivars and breeding lines originating from the LSU agcenter programs to the louisiana and U.S. Sweetpotato industries…

The primary purpose of this agreement is to provide clean plants of sweetpotato cultivars and breeding lines originating from the LSU agcenter programs to the louisiana and U.S. Sweetpotato industries and other stakeholders. The above activities are expected to result in: 1) approximately 15 accessions that are successfully processed through mestem-tip culture and 2) tested and found to be apparently free of them six ncpn target viruses and other known pathogens; 3) approximately 240 virus-tested accessions maintained in the LSU agcenter tissue culture collection; 4) provision of virus-tested tissue cultures of LSU agcenter cultivars and breeding lines to any ncpn-SP center that requests them; 5) production of as many virus-tested tissue culture plants as resources allow to support 6) production of sufficient greenhouse foundation plants to fill four greenhouses at the sprs to in turn provide ≥70,000 vine cuttings for sale to commercial growers and to provide sufficient vine cuttingsto plant ~30 acres at sprs for production of storage roots to sell as seed to commercial growers; 7) a field test will be conducted to compare yield and quality of beauregard and orleans sweetpotatoes planted from G1 (clean foundation seed from sprs) with G2 and G4 seed from commercial farms that has become RE-infected with the potyvirus complex; 8) modify the louisiana QMS as guidance is provided from the ncpn steering committee; and 9) presentations will be made at stakeholder meetings, field days, and through electronic and print media to provide stakeholders information on the value of clean seed and progress in identifying ways to keep clean plants clean through generations of production.