On Aug. 22, 2000, researchers in Kenya announced they had field-tested twelve lines of sweetpotato variety CPT 560 transformed with the SPFMV coat protein gene under controlled conditions in four important sweetpotato growing agro-ecologies in Kenya.

Up to 80% of the yield of sweet potato, the major root crop in East Africa, can be destroyed by crop diseases such as the sweet potato feathery mottle virus (SPFMV). In 2002, the results from these field trials did not provide an adequate level of SPVD resistance as expected based on visual assessment of symptoms and tissue printing bioassays.

The second generations of transgenic plants are currently being developed at the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI) Biotechnology centre.