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Dioscorea

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Wild Crop Relatives: Genomic and Breeding Resources

Abstract

Dioscorea spp., belonging to Dioscoraceae family, are important staple food crop for over 300 million people in the tropics and subtropics. They are mostly grown for their starchy tubers (both cultivated and wild) and for medicinal properties. Cultivated yams are vegetatively propagated while wild yams are sexually propagated and comprise both diploid and polyploid species. Although yam is an economically and socially important crop, limited research has been conducted to understand the complexity of the domestication process traditionally followed mainly in West Africa to develop new cultivars. The genetics and genomics of this crop is least understood due to several biological constraints and lack of research efforts. Some progress, however, has been made recently to understand the phylogeny and phylogenetic relationships within the genus, Dioscorea, and cytogenetics of the wild and cultivated species. Genetic linkage maps have been constructed for one wild species, D. tokoro and two cultivated species, Dioscorea alata and D. rotundata, and QTLs for yam mosaic virus were identified in D. rotundata and anthracnose disease in D. alata. Advances were also made in genetic transformation, including in vitro plant regeneration, gene delivery, and recovery of transgenic plants but this method still needs improvements to generate genetically modified plants. This chapter discusses the available information on Dioscorea, irrespective of wild or cultivated status, as information available on wild species is very limited and is not separable from that of cultivated ones.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), 5320, Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria

    Ranjana Bhattacharjee

  2. Central Biotechnology Laboratory, IITA, 5320, Oyo Road, Ibadan, Nigeria

    Melaku Gedil

  3. Yam Breeding, IITA, 5320, Oyo Road, Ibadan, Nigeria

    Alieu Sartie & Robert Asiedu

  4. 1CSIR-Crops Research Institute, 3785, Kumasi, Ghana

    Emmanuel Otoo

  5. Genetic Resources Unit, IITA, 5320, Oyo Road, Ibadan, Nigeria

    Dominique Dumet

  6. Yam Physiology, IITA, 5320, Oyo Road, Ibadan, Nigeria

    Hidehiko Kikuno

  7. Virology Unit, IITA, 5320, Oyo Road, Ibadan, Nigeria

    P. Lava Kumar

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    Chittaranjan Kole

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Bhattacharjee, R. et al. (2011). Dioscorea. In: Kole, C. (eds) Wild Crop Relatives: Genomic and Breeding Resources. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-21102-7_4

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