Sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas L. [Lam]) as an alternative to climate change in Europe

Abstract

Climate changes in the recent period, with a tendency to increase pedological and atmospheric droughts, determine Europe to choose new plant species that can more easily withstand thermal and hydrothermal stress, because the southern part of Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, and Poland is a natural background, who favouring of significant the impact of drought on crops. The importance of growing sweet potatoes is due both to the possibility of expanding the yield in areas where potatoes are degenerating and the need to diversify the vegetable assortment with less known species but with high nutritional value that will effectively use the mesoclimatic conditions, especially in sandy soil in of Romania, or Polish. New varieties of sweet potatoes to establish profitability of their cultivation in marginal soils in south-eastern and central-eastern Europe. The high nutritional, energy, pharmacological and fodder value of sweet potato is an important subject of scientific research, not only in America, Africa, and Asia, but also in Europe under the conditions of climate change. The content of basic substances, such as carbohydrates, proteins, lipids, carotenoids, anthocyanin’s, vitamins, minerals, and secondary metabolites, both in the root tubers and in sweet potato leaves, makes it a very nutritious herbaceous plant ensuring food safety for humans and animals. Sweet potato products can be effectively used as ingredients in food, medicine, cosmetics, but also as an energy base in European conditions and can compete with products imported from other continents.