Tropical roots, tubers and bananas: new breeding tools and methods to meet consumer preferences.

This article discusses the importance of roots, tubers, and cooking bananas (RTBs) in the diets of tropical populations, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. It highlights the challenges faced by growers due to limited genetic diversity, pests, diseases, and climate change. The article emphasizes the need for breeders to prioritize consumer preferences and post-harvest quality traits when developing new varieties. The RTBfoods project aims to address these challenges by identifying key traits desired by farmers, processors, and consumers through consultations and testing, while also incorporating a gender-intentional approach to ensure diverse perspectives are included. The article also discusses a special issue focused on RTBs and their breeding methods, providing information on quality traits and methods for analysis, processing, evaluation, and genetic studies. The goal is to identify promising genotypes with preferred traits for future release to farmers and stakeholders, with an emphasis on understanding user preferences to improve varietal adoption within RTB value chains. [Extracted from the article]