1. DEVELOPING AN EFFICIENT AND EFFECTIVE VIRUS CLEANING FOR SWEET POTATO PRESENTER: STEPHEN KHISA REF: NO. A138/22061/2012 SUPERVISOR NAME: Dr. D. MIANO COURSE: DIPLOMA IN CROP PROTECTION

2. INTRODUCTION Sweet potato is one of the food crops which was discovered in central America in Peru and Mayan area in year about 2000BC It is grown in 111 countries of which 101 are classified as developing nations Sweet potato in Africa is grown in areas of high and low rainfall. This is in sub- S aharan Africa.

3. Importance of sweet potato It promotes food security in developed and developing nations It also promotes growth in the developing nations. It improves health status of people growing sweet potato. Sweet potato is also used as animal feeds. It is also used as cover crop to control weeds.

4. The problems facing sweet potato production Prevalence of virus diseases and pests, which reduces the yields in production. Due to prevalence of diseases and pests, the poverty level will increase in developing nations. Examples affecting sweet potato: Sweet potato feathery mottle virus Sweet potato latent virus Sweet potato chlorotic virus

5. The causal agent The plant viruses are spread from plant to plant by the vectors which are; nematodes and insects.

6. Justification of proposed project Initially, the process of cleaning sweet potato viruses takes a long period from 3 – 6 months to obtain a virus free material. Not all inoculated meristems will develop into a plant. Small meristems inoculayed dry up in the culture room.

7. General objectives To reduce the cleaning period from 6 months to 3 months

8. Specific objective To determine the effective level of temperature in cleaning viruses. To determine the conditions that favour the plants to grow faster than the virus. To determine the light intensity that can promote the plant growth.

9. Materials and methods Thermotherapy and growth chambers are used for treating viruses. Synthetic media-murashige and skoog medium amd vitamins Test tubes Enclosed glass house Cultivars sourced from Kephis Muguga.