Sweet Potato in the CNMI

The sweet potato has been a staple food for Pacific islanders for centuries, and is the most widely produced crop in the CNMI. To meet the challenges in sweet potato cultivation, Northem Marianas College's Cooperative Research, Extension and Education Service (NMC-CREES) initiated a tissue culture program on sweet potato in 2006 for the production of disease-free and quality propagat ing materials. After screening new varieties of the materials obtained from CePCT (SPC, Fiji) on the Agriculture Experiment Station and on-farm trials, selected varieties propagated through tissue culture were distributed to the local farming community. This publication reports the results of field evaluations of introduced sweet potato varieties (tissue cultured) in the local soil and climatic conditions of the CNMI.Funding for this project was provided by a Hatch Grant #NMA 02 (Root Crops) from USDA-National Institute for Food and Agriculture; additional funding was provided by Agricultural Development in the American Pacific -USDA 2009-38826-1992