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• 10 / 09 / 2008

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After a brutal hurricane season that wiped out almost the entire country’s yucca crop, a main staple in the Cuban diet, agricultural officials have decided to use a new variety nationwide.

INIVIT 93-4 yucca is 40 centimeters shorter than other varieties, and therefore more hurricane resistant. The strain was created by the National Research Institute of Tropical Root Vegetables (INIVIT), in the municipality of Santo Domingo in Villa Clara.

Sergio Rodríguez, director of INIVIT, said this new variety is not only shorter but has a symmetrical anchorage in the soil, making it more resistant to wind.

INIVIT 93-4 is also resistant to plagues and diseases, and has a yield of some 7.5 tons per acre.

For many years, the National Research Institute of Root Vegetables has been making studies to obtain shorter stocks of banana and other fruit trees.

Rodríguez also spoke about the creation some time ago of the dwarf or Marador papaya, which is resistant to wind.

For more than 40 years, INIVIT has contributed to the Cuban agriculture with the creation of new varieties, the improvement of others, and technologies for the control of crops using biological methods.

(Juventud Rebelde)