Introduction to the Virus-Free Xushu 18 Sweet Potato Variety

Xushu 18 was developed by the Xuzhou Agricultural Research Institute in 1972 through backcrossing using Xin Dazi as the female parent and Huabei 52-45 as the male parent, selected from seedling progeny, with the original line number 732518. It is an excellent variety suitable for drying, starch processing, and dual use as food and feed. Xushu 18 has red skin and white flesh, with high and stable yields, wide adaptability, and good overall performance. In 1980 it won the First Prize for Science and Technology Progress from the Ministry of Agriculture, and in 1982 it won the First Prize for National Invention. It is the dominant variety in large-scale production in China, accounting for 1/3 of China's total sweet potato planting area. Because Xushu 18 has been promoted for nearly 30 years, the variety has become seriously mixed and degraded, and yields have stagnated. Virus-free Xushu 18 has restored the excellent characteristics of the original Xushu 18, with a yield increase of 20%-40% per mu compared with the original Xushu 18, and up to more than double in some cases. The usual yield is 3500 kg per mu for spring sweet potatoes and 2500 kg per mu for summer sweet potatoes; the dry matter rate increases by 1-4 percentage points, the dry yield rate is 30%-35%, and the starch yield rate is 20%-25%.