Federal Grant Award Summary

North Carolina State University received a $618,000 Project Grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) under the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) program (CFDA 10.310), effective April 1, 2026 through March 31, 2030. The award supports the development of cytology-based and next-generation sequencing (NGS) methods to detect and characterize aneuploidy in sweetpotato germplasm. The research team—comprising experts in sweetpotato breeding, cytogenetics, genomics, and bioinformatics—will create detailed karyotypes for forty sweetpotato genotypes using oligonucleotide fluorescence in situ hybridization (oligo-FISH) techniques, then establish a more accessible and cost-effective NGS-based detection methodology that leverages correlations between known and unknown genetic features.

The primary deliverable is a practical diagnostic toolkit enabling sweetpotato breeders to efficiently detect, control, and strategically utilize aneuploid genetic variation in breeding programs. By addressing the current gap in accessible aneuploidy detection tools, this research will enhance understanding of sweetpotato genetics and improve cultivar development efficiency. Given sweetpotato's status as one of the world's top six essential food crops with a $7.6 billion annual production value in the United States, these tools are intended to advance domestic agricultural productivity, strengthen food security, and enhance the competitiveness of the U.S. sweetpotato industry.