OAR@ICRISATGroundnut cropping guideHDesmaeauthorHSonesauthorThis cropping guide is one in a series being produced for extension workers by the African Soil Health Consortium (ASHC). The series also covers banana-coffee, cassava, maize-legumes, sorghum and millet-legumes, rice systems and sweetpotato, but this guide is focused on groundnut. Rural extension workers will find this handbook particularly useful for guiding their clients as they shift from producing groundnut under traditional cropping systems for subsistence to more marketoriented enterprises through sustainable intensification. The guide aims to provide, in a single publication, all the most important information needed to design and implement effective systems, including those that combine groundnut with a range of other crops, either as intercrops or in rotations, but with the primary focus on groundnut. Although ASHC’s work is focused on the needs of smallholder farmers in Africa, emerging and established commercial farmers will also find the contents relevant and useful. The ASHC mission is to improve the livelihoods of smallholder farmers through adoption of Integrated Soil Fertility Management (ISFM) approaches that optimise fertilizer use efficiency and effectiveness. The overarching framework for the guide is therefore provided by ISFM. The overall objective of the handbook is to provide simple, useful tips on how farmers with small to medium-sized farms can benefit from more efficient and profitable groundnut production. Currently yields in Africa average under 1 tonne per hectare and can be as low as 500 kg or less: in comparison yields in Asia average over 2.2 tonnes per hectare and are close to 4 tonnes per hectare in the Americas. By following the recommendations in this guide, smallholder farmers should be able to increase production from under 1 tonne per hectare to as much as 2.5-3 tonnes per hectare or more. By adopting optimal crop rotations, yield of crops such as cereals will also be increased and by adopting successful intercrop combinations and arrangements smallholder farmers will benefit from increases in overall production and profitabilityGroundnut2017Africa Soil Health ConsortiumMonograph

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