Evaluation of Acholi white advanced crosses for groundnut rosette, leaf spot diseases and yield parameters
Abstract
Landraces reflect the cultural identity of the people and this probably explains why some farmers in Uganda are still growing these landraces despite various options from recently released improved varieties. Groundnut landraces still widely grown include Acholi white, which is best known for its peanut butter and sauce, its early maturity period of 85 days, off-white seed coat color and high oil content of about 51%. This land race is however low yielding and highly susceptible to foliar diseases especially groundnut rosette and cercospora leaf spot diseases. Despite succumbing to the major production constraints reflected in the low yields, this land race confers certain traits preferred by farmers and consumers which range from taste, shell ability, early maturity, high oil content, among others. Owing to these desirable traits and the need to increase productivity and production, there has been need for introgression of the available disease resistance genes into this farmer preferred landrace. Therefore, National Semi-Arid Resources Research Institute(NaSARRI) developed eight Advanced Acholi white crosses selected at the eleventh filial generation arising from a cross of Acholi white, Igola and Serenut 6.
This experiment therefore evaluated the eight advanced crosses for resistance to groundnut rosette, leaf spot diseases and yield parameters using Acholi white and Igola as check parents.
The study found that there was a significant difference in the leaf spot severity between the crosses and their parents from fourth week to harvest; a significant difference in the percentage incidence of Groundnut rosette between the crosses and parents at12 weeks and a significant difference between the crosses and the parents via average number of pods, 100 dry pod weight, haulm yield, fresh pod yield and dry pod yield.
However, none of the crosses performed better than the Superior parent IGOLA 1 for all the traits although many genotypes performed significantly higher than Acholi white and close to the IGOLA 1 with respect to the various traits.SGV AW1 0802, AW. S6 PR and ICGV-SM 95714 were the most promising lines via dry pod yield attaining1420.92kg/ha,1172.17kg/ha and 1194.76kg/ha respectively. These therefore ought to be put to multi-location trials to confirm my findings and later on-farm trials for selection of most preferred cross to increase production, productivity and farmer adoption.