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  • Publication | 2022

Breeding for drought adaptation and fresh seed dormancy of groundnut in Senegal: advances, challenges, and prospects

Global Food and Nutrition Security

Groundnut (Arachis hypogaea L.) is a multi-purpose legume widely cultivated in the semiarid tropics. In Senegal, groundnut is historically an important crop, and it remains one of the commodities with a huge potential for exports. However, due to the country's location in the Sahelian zone in West Africa, crop production is subject to low and erratic rainfall patterns and unpredictable end of the rainy season. Therefore, groundnut breeding programs were initiated early in the 20th century to develop and release drought-tolerant cultivars with fresh seed dormancy (to avoid rapid sprouting). This review highlights the significant advances made in these research areas to reduce yield losses and groundnut quality deterioration. Challenges concerning the effects of climate change on agricultural production, which will keep increasing over the coming decades, are also addressed herein. Finally, we provided some insights on integrating the new breeding tools and methods such as high-throughput phenotyping, marker-assisted and genomic selection to breed groundnut varieties that are more adapted to the agro-ecologies in Senegal.