Progress on potato improvement in the Southern highlands of Tanzania
Mayona, C.M|Mwambene, OF / 1992

About 90% of Tanzania's total potato crop is produced in the Southern Highlands. Potatoes are gaining in importance both, as a cash and food crop, at village level as well as in urban area. There has been an expansion in the area of potatoes and an increase in the number of farmers growing the crop. However, the yield per unit area still remains low at about 5 to 7 t ha4 mainly because of the use of low yielding disease-susceptible varieties, soil fertility decline, poor husbandry practices and lack of improved seed. Uyole Agricultural Centre (UAC) has released high yielding disease-resistant varieties for commercial production. Agronomic and plant protection studies at UAC have resulted in packages of recommendations for the various potato growing areas of the Southern Highlands. This paper highlights the main research findings, describes farmers' achievements and constraints, and discusses future research plans at UAC.