A new approach to improvement of yam Dioscorea rotundata

摘要: EFFORTS to improve the yam, D. rotundata, through hybridisation have been frustrated by low rate of flowering, very fruit setting and poor seed germination1–3. These constraints confined availability genetic resources for selection small number cultivars which vegetatively reproduced from time immemorial. This continued vegetative propagation lack precluded possibility introduction new characteristics, resulting in a stagnation yam improvement. To facilitate hybridisation, we re-examined problems flowering germination. We first reported4 germination November 1973, Doku stated that he had germinated seeds rotundata (unpublished). Here report feasibility germinating seeds, rapid improvement opportunity this development affords expanding present germ plasm collections, thus facilitating