A joint sweet potato plantation for healthy seedlings was officially launched at Shilai Town, Xintai City, by the collaboration of SCCB, Tai’an and Xintai Jianxin Agri-technology Co. Ltd. Prof. Zhang Peng from SCCB and Vice Mayor He Hui of Xintai City unveiled the plate of the plantation and visited the sweet potato seedling nurseries of the company.

Sweet potato is an important root crop in Huanghuai region of China. Viral diseases have emerged as serious economic impediments to sweet potato cultivation in recent years and caused great losses in sweet potato production. Due to the vegetative propagation for traditional planting in sweet potato, the availability of healthy seedlings is the basis of its stable production. To promote sweet potato industrialization, it is essential to build plantations for delivery of healthy seedlings to farmers. The construction of such plantation will based on the local enterprise and use modern biotechnology tools to develop and utilize the healthy seedling of sweet potato for high-yielding cultivation demonstration. The reduction of sweet potato viral disease occurrence can improve the yield and quality of sweet potato, which promotes small-holder farmers’ income and regional agriculture development.