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Sweet potato in Uganda

Reuben Ssali, CIP

  1. Why did you use Tricot?

I realized I would be able to reach many more farmers and it is very easy to involve farmers regardless of their education level or resources.

  1. What lessons did you learn using tricot?

First lesson is that multiplication rate of varieties is very important. If you start a trial and a variety is not well multiplied it is not easy to resolve. I also learned that it gives us an opportunity to engage researchers that we do not usually work with, like those the people that multiplied the seeds. Also we were able to involve agricultural extension officers throughout the trial. ClimMob software gave us a good platform to implement the tricot trials, from registering farmers to collecting data. When farmers made the ranking it was difficult to know what trade-offs they are making, i.e. what traits they accept in the ranking.

  1. What new insights about sweet potatoes did you get from the trials?

We had previously made surveys to find which traits farmers wanted in the varieties so we had a rough idea of important traits. Implementing tricot allowed us to validate some traits. Trait preferences are more pronounced when farmers provide information about their rankings. We also discovered that some farmers can ignore some negative traits, like mealiness of some varieties.

  1. What advice do you have for someone who wants to use tricot?

First I would say that the tricot approach is very practical for both the farmer and researcher. The supporting system ClimMob makes the research easier to implement and also you can easily give feedback to farmers at the end of the trial.

  1. Do you think the tricot approach is appropriate for variety evaluation and release?

Yes it is appropriate because first it is able to tell you the best and worst varieties just from the ranking. Good feeback loop for breeders because can tell you why a variety you released is being rejected. Variety release committee appreciate the robust statistics with tricot.

  1. What are the challenges that need to be addressed?

Only challenges is not being able to quickly distinguish the trade-offs of good vs bad traits. We would like to know why did farmers appreciate varieties despite some bad traits.