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

This Cooperative Agreement award from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) under the Plant and Animal Disease, Pest Control, and Animal Care program (CFDA 10.025) provides $210,000 to the Louisiana State University Agricultural Center (LSU AgCenter) to support activities related to the National Clean Plant Network for Sweetpotato (NCPN-SP).

The primary objectives are to provide clean sweetpotato cultivars and breeding lines from LSU AgCenter programs to the Louisiana and U.S. sweetpotato industry, as well as other stakeholders. This includes processing approximately 10-15 sweetpotato accessions through meristem-tip culture to produce virus-tested materials, maintaining a collection of 230 virus-tested accessions, and distributing virus-tested tissue cultures to other NCPN-SP centers upon request. Additionally, the LSU AgCenter will produce over 70,000 virus-tested vine cuttings for sale to commercial growers, modify the Louisiana quality management system based on guidance from the NCPN Steering Committee, and conduct outreach to stakeholders on the value of clean seed and keeping plants disease-free.

The primary purpose of this agreement is to provide clean plants of sweet potato cultivars and breeding lines originating from the LSU agcenter programs to the louisiana and U.S. Sweet potato industries and other stakeholders. Activities at the louisiana center will include therapy, diagnostics, maintenance, and distribution of clean sweetpotato. The above activities are expected to result in: 1) approximately 10 to 15 accessions that are successfully processed through meristem-tip culture and 2) tested and found to be apparently free of the six ncpn target viruses and other known pathogens; 3) approximately 230 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 over 70,000 vine cuttings for sale to commercial growers 7) modify the louisiana QMS as guidance is provided from the ncpn steering committee; and 8) 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.