Agronomic Performance and Organoleptic Characteristics of Local Varieties of Sweet Potato (Ipomea batatas) Cultivated in Mbaiki (Central African Republic)

In the Central African Republic, there are a multitude of local varieties of sweet potato. However, few studies have been carried their agro morphological and organoleptic characteristics. A Fisher random block device was set up on the three local varieties of sweet potato. The growing and production parameters were evaluated as well as the organoleptic characteristics through the food taste test. The parameters of growing and production were assessed by means of analysis of variance (ANOVA) with one classification criterion using the R software version 3.1.3. A Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was also performed with the growth and yield parameters in order to highlight the correlations between these different parameters. The variety 1 (V1) produced the plants with the largest diameters (1.30 cm), while the smallest diameters was observed in the variety 2 (V2) with 0.55 cm. There is a significant difference (P-value = 0.0001) between the different varieties according to the ANOVA test. According to the length of the tuber, the V2 produced the longest tuberous root than the others with an average of 28.53 cm. The smallest length is observed in the V3 with an average of 25.12 cm. There is not significant (p-value = 0.216) in relation with the length of the tuber for the cultivated varieties of the sweet potato. The eigenvalues of the two main axes extracted from the Principal Component Analysis explained 53.68% and 16.82% of the matrix growth/ yield information. Along the factor axes, apart from parameters such as tuber diameters and length which are not positively correlated, there is little variability between the other parameters which are strongly correlated.