Mosaic-resistant cassava (Amani)
Yuca resistente al mosaico (Amani)
- Date
- c. 1937 · confidence medium
- Place
- Amani Research Station, Muheza, Tanga, Tanzania
- Credited to
- Hubert Storey and colleagues of the Colonial Agricultural Service
- Field
- Life & health
What it is
At the Amani station cassava was crossed with Manihot glaziovii to obtain resistance to cassava mosaic virus, a devastating disease in eastern Africa. The resulting lines became the basis of later cassava breeding programmes.
The work by Storey and Nichols at Amani (1930s and 1940s) used interspecific hybridisation; the polygenic resistance remained stable for decades.
What it led to
- resistant varieties in Tanzania, Kenya and later Nigeria
- IITA cassava improvement programmes from the 1970s
- protection of a vital subsistence crop against a plant pandemic