Nigeria's GM Potato Project First-year Trial Shows 300% Yield Advantage

The Genetically Modified (GM) Potato Project in Nigeria has concluded its first-year multi-locational confined trial in three locations, with the biotech potatoes showing a uniform yield advantage of over 300 percent compared to the best-performing variety in the country without fungicide application.

The harvested biotech potato did not show any difference in tuber size or shape compared to the non-biotech potato. The biotech potatoes also performed well, with 100 percent of the plants without late blight symptoms. The trials were conducted in Kuru and Bokkos in Plateau State and Kusuku in Taraba State under the Feed the Future Global Biotech Potato Partnership (GBPP), a five-year project coordinated by Michigan State University that focuses on the commercialization of late-blight disease-resistant potatoes in farmer-preferred varieties in Bangladesh, Indonesia, Kenya, and Nigeria.

Dr. Charles Amadi, GBPP Principal Investigator in Nigeria, said he was excited by the promising results, which showed that biotech potatoes can contribute significantly to the mitigation of devastation caused by recurrent outbreaks of late blight in the country's potato-growing areas.

For more details, read the news in the Nigerian Tribune.