Luigi wondered whether there was a connection between my recent report of a cassava that did not show post-harvest physiological degradation (PPD, or rotting for the rest of us) and his own post on the same subject in March of this year. So we asked the CIAT blogger.
So what’s the story? Did the high carotene trait come from M. walkerae? Or some other place? It would be great if you could tie these loose ends up for us.
And he did, by asking the CIAT researcher.
There is a connection as Luigi suggests. In the article we have just submitted there are four different sources of tolerance to PPD:
1) High carotenes
2) Induced mutations
3) Tolerance from a wild relative (Manihot walkerae)
4) Waxy starch genotypes.
The tolerance from high carotene clones is not coming from M. walkerae. It is an entirely different source and an entirely new chemical basis for the tolerance as well. As it turns out the tolerance from M. walkerae (which is real and is there) is not as good as the one we have seen in yellow rooted cassava.
Thanks to Neil, and to Hernán, and to Luigi’s elephantine memory. We’ll be on the lookout for that paper.