China produces annually over 100 million tons of sweet potato, 80 % of the world’s harvest. The plant’s genome is hexaploid. By phylogenetic tree analysis of homologous chromosomes, it was shown that about 500,000 years ago, a diploid and a tetraploid ancestor formed an interspecific hybrid leading to todays crop. The team used Illumina sequencing technology and developed a new set of polyploid haplotype analysis software.

China Bio news release, August 21, 2017