Disease management factors influencing yield and quality of sorghum and groundnut crop residues

Abstract

Crop residues from groundnut and sorghum constitute important fodder resources for dairy production and fodder trading on the Deccan Plateau in India. This paper addresses the effect of important diseases of groundnut and sorghum on pod and grain yield and crop residue yield and quality. In four genotypes of groundnut, late leaf spot (Phaeoisasariopsis personata) and rust (Puccinia arachidis) are the two major foliar diseases that together could reduce pod and haulm yield by 70% and in vitro digestibility of haulms by 22%. Two genotypes (ICGV 9202 and 92093) were highly resistant to these foliar diseases maintaining high pod and haulm yield as well as high in vitro digestibility of haulms (>62.3%) even under highest disease pressure. Important diseases in sorghum investigated were a viral disease caused by maize stripe virus (MStV) and anthracnose caused by Colletotrichum graminicola. MStV reduced grain yield by 30%, stover yield by 42% and digestible stover yield by 45%. Effects of MStV were highly genotype-dependent and grain and stover were affected in different ways in different varieties. The choice of appropriate genotype for a given farming situation will depend on trade-off scenarios for benefits from grain and stover. Similarly, anthracnose could reduce grain yield by 47% and stover yield by 23% but effects on stover quality were variable. As observed for MStV, effects of anthracnose were highly genotype-dependent and genotypes were identified that maintained high grain and stover yield under high disease pressure.

Genotype × environment interaction and yield stability in a cowpea-based cropping system

“…The strength of the relationship between earliness to flower and grain yield was not strong enough, however, to preclude the development of later maturing varieties that are higher in grain yield and biomass production. Moreover, lack of correlation between grain yield and biomass suggests progress can be made in developing dualpurpose (grain and fodder) varieties to meet farmers' demands for legume crop residue as fodder for livestock during the post-rainy seasons in the savanna zones of West Africa (Pande et al 2003). The number of branches per plant was not correlated with either grain yield, number of pods per plant or with harvest index.…”

Genotype × environment interaction for yield and reaction to leaf spot infections in groundnut in semiarid West Africa

“…The association between high kernel yield, high biomass and low AUDPC suggests that high total dry matter production mediated by resistance to foliar diseases is an important adaptation strategy of groundnut to these semi-arid areas. For a region that crop biomass is critically needed during the dry seasons for livestock feed, improving cultivar resistance to leaf spots will increase economic returns from both the increase in quantity of haulm, and the quality of the resulting fodder (Pande et al 2003). Over the past two decades, improving groundnut cultivars for foliar disease resistance have been an important breeding objective of the National groundnut breeding program in Ghana, and has resulted in the release of varieties with appreciably high levels of resistance compared to farmers' preferred early maturing genotypes, notably Shitaochi (Padi et al 2006;Frimpong et al 2006a,b).…”

“…Also, groundnut haulm which is critically needed as livestock feed particularly during the post-rainy season, is degraded both in quantity and quality, by leaf spot infections. As the infections mainly attack the leaves leading to premature defoliation, it increases stem percentage of the resulting fodder and reduces in vitro digestibility (Pande et al 2003). The unpredictability in the timing of the end of the rainy season in the major groundnut production zones of the Guinea and Sudan savanna eco-regions has led farmers to prefer early maturing genotypes over the full-season, long-duration types that are of high kernel and haulm yield potential.…”

Combining Ability for Yield and Yield Components in Groundnut (Arachis hypogaea L.)

“…2n=40 is an important monoecious annual legume in the world mainly grown for edible oil, food and animal feed (Pande et al, 2003;Upadhyaya et al, 2006). The flowers are a typical pea flower in shape, 2 to 4 cm (0.8 to1.6") across, yellow with reddish veining.…”