OAR@ICRISATAdvances in groundnut breeding for drought prone West and Central AfricaHDesmaeauthorBNtareauthorB NMotagiauthorHFalalouauthorH DUpadhyayaauthorROteng-FrimpongauthorDSakoauthorCEchekwuauthorAMiningouauthorEMonyoauthorR KVarshneyauthorThe West and Central Africa region accounts for more than 70% of the groundnut production in Africa. The crop is challenged by various biotic and abiotic production constraints with drought being the main abiotic constraint. ICRISAT has been working with national breeding programs to develop improved groundnut varieties. The approach used included identifying sources of resistance, developing populations, evaluating in target environments and releasing improved farmer preferred varieties for production. The Tropical Legumes project initiated in 2007 has been instrumental in strengthening the breeding program in the region. Nine drought resistant/tolerant accessions were identified from evaluation of the mini core collections, and these accessions have been utilized as parents in crossing programs. Since 2007, ICRISAT distributed more than 1000 advanced breeding lines to national programs. Farmer participatory variety selection was found very useful for fast track release and adoption of improved varieties. Twenty two varieties have been released/registered across the region as a result of project efforts (4 in Ghana, 5 in Mali, 4 in Niger, 3 in Nigeria and 6 in Senegal). These varieties are high yielding (yield advantage of >20%) with resistance or tolerance to drought and major diseases. Currently, efforts are underway to improve the efficiency of breeding programs and to enhance genetic gain. These include designing product pipelines based on traits of breeding interest; reducing generation advancement process of breeding populations by growing 2 to 3 generations per year; integrating modern genomic tools; digitizing data collection, analysis, management and sharing by using BMS; and enhancing the skills of breeders and technicians.Crop ImprovementPlant BreedingGroundnutWest AfricaCentral Africa2017-02Conference or Workshop Item

For work being deposited by its own author: In self-archiving this collection of files and associated bibliographic metadata, I grant OAR@ICRISAT the right to store them and to make them permanently available publicly for free on-line. I declare that this material is my own intellectual property and I understand that OAR@ICRISAT does not assume any responsibility if there is any breach of copyright in distributing these files or metadata. (All authors are urged to prominently assert their copyright on the title page of their work.)

For work being deposited by someone other than its author: I hereby declare that the collection of files and associated bibliographic metadata that I am archiving at OAR@ICRISAT) is in the public domain. If this is not the case, I accept full responsibility for any breach of copyright that distributing these files or metadata may entail.

Clicking on the deposit button indicates your agreement to these terms.