Prevalence, Incidence and Distribution of Sweet Potato Virus: Its Effect on the Yield of Sweet Potato in Southern Region of Ethiopia

Sweet potato virus disease (SPVD) is one of the major constraints of sweet potato production in east and central African. However the problem has not been reported in Ethiopia until recently. Even if the first introduction of the virus was not clearly known, its devastation behavior was observed in 2005-2006 around Hawassa agricultural research center. In order to confirm this speculation a survey was conducted during 2007/08 cropping season in major sweet potato growing areas of southern Ethiopia. This survey was confirmed the presence of sweet potato virus both in farmers field and Research stations. Thus it was conclude that 75 % of farmers field and 100 % experimental stations were infected by the disease. Apart from virus, other diseases such as Cercospora leaf spot, Alternaria leaf spot, stem blight, leaf blight were also recorded on the crop and considered as minor problem. During the virus disease assessment, vector and non vector insect pests such as Sweet potato butter fly, sweet potato weevil, aphids, and white fly were documented. Among the insect pests aphid and white fly were already known vectors of SPVD. It was also observed that SPVD has affected negatively the number of roots (44.73 %) and weight (32.44 %) of per plant.