Effect of temperature on sweet potato virus disease development

The results from this study suggest that sweetpotato will increasingly become a more important food security crop amidst increasing threats of global warming since the least sweet potato virus disease (SPVD) severities were observed under high temperature conditions. Further study into the effect of temperature on the SPVD is necessary. The following specific recommendations are drawn from this study: The selection of sweetpotato cultivars suitable to different agroecological zones should be based on the purpose of cultivation and the prevailing SPVD pressures. For instance whereas cultivar New Kawogo showed a high degree of resistance to SPVD across environments, it did not produce tubers under high temperatures of the glasshouse. In this same environment, the cultivar produced very vegetatively. However, there could be other factors that influence the cultivars' performance other than temperature and SPVD.