The experiment was conducted to ascertain the level of genetic diversity in sweet potato accessions using microsatellites. Thirty sweet potato accessions obtained from the International Potato Center (CIP), Kumasi, Ghana, Mozambique, and local germplasm of the National Root Crops Research Institute (NRCRI), Umudike, Abia State, Nigeria, as well as sweet potato vines from local farmers' fields in Jos, Plateau State, and Bauchi State, Nigeria, were analyzed for genetic diversity using five microsatellite markers. The results showed that the polymorphic SSR loci revealed diverse relationship among the sweet potato cultivars, which was grouped into four major clusters by unweighted pair group method analysis (UPGMA) method. Cluster analysis showed a Jaccard co-efficient ranging from 0.0 to 3.0 indicating high genetic diversity. The primers detected a total of 18 alleles and the number of alleles per locus was 4 for IBR-19, IBR-286, IBR-297 and 3 for IBR-16 and IBR-242 with an average of 3.67 alleles per locus. The polymorphic information content (PIC) of the markers varied from 0.35 to 0.72 with an average of 0.497. Marker IBR-19 revealed the highest PIC of 0.72, while marker IBR-297 had the lowest PIC of 0.35. Observed heterozygosity ranged from 0.32 to 0.89 with a mean of 0.675 across the five SSR loci. The results from the Analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA) which was used to quantify the diversity level and genetic relationship among the thirty sweet potato accessions indicated that a high diversity was mostly distributed within the populations for sweet potato accessions (75.12%) and (15.67%) among the populations.

This study is focused on the management of phytophthora blight, a fungal disease of “pigeon pea” by the application of some aqueous extracts of neem plant parts. The aim of the study was to manage the phytophthora blight of pigeon pea using the plant parts extract of neem. The study was conducted in the year, 2021, at the Demonstration Farms (both field and laboratory) of the Department of Crop Science and Technology, School of Agriculture and Agricultural Technology, Federal University of Technology, Owerri, Imo State, Nigeria. The experiment was designed as Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with five replications. Data on pigeon pea growth parameters and disease incidence and severity, were statistically analyzed by the use of Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) software as outlined by Wahua. The means were separated for difference using the Fisher’s Least Significant Difference (FLSD). Results indicated that aqueous extract of neem seed application caused the tallest Pigeon pea height (103.30 cm), the highest number of pigeon pea leaves (99.40), the lowest phytophthora blight disease incidence (11.00%) and also the lowest phytophthora blight disease severity (1.00).