Problem: Potato production has expanded rapidly in the tropical highlands of Asia and Africa since the 1970s. The problem encountered by farmers is the rapid degeneration of the seed tuber quality after several years of repeatedly growing seed from the previous potato crop. Vietnamese farmers especially had that problem during the 1980s.
Outcome: Under the leadership of a practical biological scientist, farmers, who wanted assistance, received training on how to do simple tissue culture in their homes. With new improved late blight resistant varieties this was launched with 10 farm families in the early 1980s. To date this technology is still being done by farmers in Vietnam but has also spread to many other parts of the globe helping potato growers have virus and pathogen free planting material to grow excellent crops of high quality potatoes.
Dr Nguyen Van Uyen initiated this work with some very keen farm families such as the one shown in the above picture taken in January 1982. The farmers maintained their tissue culture plants in a corner of one of their rooms in the house. A Bunsen burner was used for sterilization. Plastic walls kept the area clean as can be seen in the picture. In this way mother plants were produced from which simple leaf apical cuttings were taken for up to 5 months. These were rooted in a media conducive for the purpose and then transplanted to farmers fields. Soon several million rooted cuttings were being sold to crop farmers. This has continued now for almost 40 years with several families now into the 3rd generation of doing this business.
Dr Gelia Castillo who was a Board member of the International Potato Center in the 1980s coined the phrase: “the demystification of sophisticated tissue culture”! This is a very apt description of what has happened and how this technology has spread first in SE Asia and now to South Asia and to Africa. The economic benefits of this technology is untold but evident by the prosperity that adopters of this technology have obtained.
Enjoy the video that clearly describes the why and how this is done: