Participatory assessment of potato production systems and cultivar development in Rwanda

Potato cultivars grown in Rwanda are very old, low yielding and not amenable to food processing. High yielding and late blight tolerant cultivars for this country should be evaluated at different agro-ecozones prior to releasing them to farmers, who are yet to be integrated into potato breeding. The objectives of this study were to assess farmers’ preferred traits in potato cultivars and to gather knowledge from farmers about potato clones bred in Rwanda. Four respondents per village in 36 villages each for the districts of Musanze, Burera and Nyamagabe participated in the survey, whose questionnaire was about farm size, gender balance, land allocated to potatoes and other main crops, potato “seed” sourcing, potato production constraints and most important potato attributes. Potato was rated as the most important food and cash crop. ‘Kirundo’, ‘Cruza’, ‘Mabondo’ and ‘Victoria’ were the most popular cultivars. Among them, Mabondo’ was the most resistant to the oomycete Phytophthora infestans causing late blight. Potato production in Rwanda is limited by lack of improved cultivars, high temperature, drought, acidic soil, pathogens, insects, weeds, inadequate storage of tubers as planting material, post-harvest technology, low market price of tubers at harvest, lack of access to credit, climate change, and gaps such as inadequate fertilizer and fungicide applications. The most important cultivar attributes were high tuber yield, host plant resistance and high specific gravity or dry matter.