GENETIC POTENTIAL AND STABILITY OF CAROTENE CONTENT IN CASSAVA ROOTS

People in vast areas of the tropics suffer from vitamin A deficiency, resulting in progressive eye damage and eventually leading to blindnes s. Improving the content of vitamin A precursors in staple crops could alleviate or solve such a problem. The objective of this work was to study the range of variability for carotene content in a sub-set of th e global cassava germplasm collection, and to determine the inheritanc e of carotenes, as well as their stability in response to different pr ocessing methodologies. Genotypes with more than 2 mg carotenes/100 g of fresh roots have been selected as parental material for population development. Although root colour is highly correlated with carotene c ontent, a quantitative evaluation of genotypes selected by colour is r equired in order to increase the efficiency of selection. Relatively f ew major genes are involved in the determination of carotene accumulat ion in cassava roots. Stability of carotenes in response to different processing methods is genotypically dependant, representing a trait to be evaluated after selecting for high carotene concentration in fresh roots. The results from this work have provided the basis for definin g future strategies for the improvement of the nutritional quality of cassava.