Genetic variability and genotype by environment interaction of two major cassava processed products in multi-environments

Cynthia Idhigu Aghogho; Saviour J Y Eleblu; Moshood A Bakare; Ismail Siraj Kayondo; Isaac Asante; Elizabeth Y Parkes; Peter Kulakow; Samuel Kwame Offei; Ismail Rabbi

doi:10.3389/fpls.2022.974795

Genetic variability and genotype by environment interaction of two major cassava processed products in multi-environments

Front Plant Sci. 2022 Oct 17:13:974795. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2022.974795. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Cynthia Idhigu Aghogho^{1

2}, Saviour J Y Eleblu¹, Moshood A Bakare³, Ismail Siraj Kayondo², Isaac Asante¹, Elizabeth Y Parkes², Peter Kulakow², Samuel Kwame Offei¹, Ismail Rabbi²

Affiliations

¹ West Africa Centre for Crop Improvement (WACCI), College of Basic and Applied Sciences University of Ghana, Legon, Ghana.
² International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), Ibadan, Nigeria.
³ Plant Breeding and Genetics Section, School of Integrative Plant Science, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, United States.

Abstract

Conversion of cassava (Manihot esculenta) roots to processed products such as gari and fufu before consumption is a common practice worldwide by cassava end-user for detoxification, prolonged shelf life or profitability. Fresh root and processed product yield are supposed to be equivalent for each genotype, however, that is not the case. Developing genotypes with high product conversion rate is an important breeding goal in cassava as it drives the adoption rates of new varieties. The objective of this study was to quantify the contribution of genetic and genotype-by-environment interaction (GEI) patterns on cassava root conversion rate to gari and fufu. Sixty-seven advanced breeding genotypes from the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) were evaluated across eight environments in Nigeria. Root conversion rate means across trials ranges from 14.72 to 22.76% for gari% and 16.96-24.24% for fufu%. Heritability estimates range from 0.17 to 0.74 for trial bases and 0.71 overall environment for gari% and 0.03-0.65 for trial bases and 0.72 overall environment for fufu% which implies that genetic improvement can be made on these traits. Root conversion rate for both gari and fufu% showed a negative but insignificant correlation with fresh root yield and significant positive correlation to Dry Matter content. For all fitted models, environment and interaction had explained more of the phenotypic variation observed among genotypes for both product conversion rates showing the presence of a strong GEI. Wrickle ecovalence (Wi) stability analysis and Geometric Adaptability index (GAI) identified G40 (TMS14F1285P0006) as part of top 5 genotypes for gari% but no overlapping genotype was identified by both stability analysis for fufu%. This genotypic performance across environments suggests that it is possible to have genotype with dual-purpose for high gari and fufu conversion rate.

Keywords: cassava processed products breeding; gari and fufu conversion rate; genetic variability; genotype by environment interaction; heritability.