The International Potato Center (CIP) conserves one of the largest collections of sweetpotato germplasm as a public good under the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA) with 5,620 accessions maintained in vitro. To facilitate the evaluation of diversity panels in different research or breeding projects, a core and mini core collections were developed with Core Hunter3 software.

The mini core collection currently contains 16 accessions. It was derived from a sampling of the core collection (140 accessions) that was established from only the virus free portion of the germplasm to ensure the material could be shipped internationally. The analysis identified maximum diversity using 30 morphological descriptors and 47,000 DArTseq molecular markers. The sweetpotato germplasm is available for distribution to requestors for research, training, and breeding.