Agromorphological characterization of groundnut (<i>Arachis hypogaea</i> L.) accessions in Northern Côte d’Ivoire

Arachis hypogaea L., better known as groundnut, is an annual leguminous plant, cultivated for its oil seeds. In Cote d’Ivoire, groundnut production used to be geared towards local consumption, but a is now being export. In order to support this trend, the present study was initiated with the aim of assessing the phenotypic diversity of the agromorphological traits a few cultivated varieties. A total of 57 groundnut accessions collected in the north and center-west of the country were cultivated in the Botanical Garden of Peleforo Gon Coulibaly University. The system used was a randomized Fisher block with three replications, and 26 agronomic and morphological parameters were measured. The results showed considerable variability between accessions in terms of vegetative and production parameters, such as the weight of 100 dry seeds, dry pods yield and dry seed yield. In addition, the number of days to flowering, the number of primary branches, the number of days to maturity and the weight of 100 dry seeds were the key parameters for the identification of ideal accessions for higher yield. Thus, information on accessions, on identical characteristics in terms of yield, could contribute to peanut genetic improvement of groundnut in future breeding work in order to meet growers’ expectations.