This document summarizes the groundnut breeding program improvement plans in Mali. Short term plans include creating genetic diversity through hybridization with disease resistant donors, backcrossing the hybrids to recurrent parents to introgress resistance, selecting superior lines through multiple generations of selfing and testing. Medium term plans involve using phenotyping and genotyping data to detect quantitative trait loci for traits like yield and disease resistance to enable marker-assisted backcrossing. Constraints to the program include lack of greenhouse, stress screening facilities, and mechanization. The overall goal is to develop new groundnut varieties with medium duration and resistance to early leaf spot disease.

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Tropical Legumes III
Program Improvement Plans
GROUNDNUT - MALI
Nairobi, Kenya, 1-2 September 2016
By
Dramane SAKO
Head of Groundnut Programme
IER, CRRA of Kayes

2. Investment
• Irrigation facilities set in place for offseason activities (2 ha)
• Crossing block established
• Phenotyping platform for aflatoxin established
• Cool chamber made functional
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3. Short term improvement
TL III breeding objective is the development of 5 medium
duration varieties with resistance to ELS;
Participation of plant pathologist have been requested;
Two technicians all ready trained on groundnut hybridization
have been recruited;
Nursery irrigation facility will be set in place in addition of
seed production irrigation facility.
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4. Short term improvement
Artificial hybridization to create genetic diversity has been done
• 3 donors of ELS resistance and medium duration have been
collected from ICRISAT, Bamako (ICGV 01276, ICGV 99029 and ICG
7878);
• A lot of crosses between those varieties and 3 high yielding preferred
by farmers(Fleur 11, ICIAR 19BT and JL 24) have been done to
generate F1;
• Poor facilities may limit the success of the crosses
• Hybrid confirmation test to discard self pollinated plants is ongoing.
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5. Short term improvement
Exploit that diversity by:
• Using suitable method of improvement (backcrossing) for
introgression of ELS resistance into high yielding farmer
preferred varieties background
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6. Line Improvement
through Backcross
Method
Four backcrosses to
recipient with selection
for desired trait
Finish with selfing
to isolate
homozygous line

7. Short term improvement
The F1 will be backcrossed to recurrent parent to generate
BC1 population and resistant plants will be selected based on
artificial infestation to ELS.
Selected plants are backcrossed to give a large BC2 generation.
Intensive selection will be made for the trait of the donor and
general features of recurrent parent.
The selected plants will be backcrossed to give a large
population of BC3 generation and selection will be made for
the recurrent parent and so on for BC4.
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8. Short term improvement
After BC4 backcrossed plants will be selfed during 4
generations to produce homozygous plants;
Offseason irrigation facilities will be used for both
backcrossing and for rapid selfing generations advancements.
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9. Short term improvement
Selection of superior lines will be based on defined criteria :
• Resistance to ELS
• Medium duration
• High yielding
The success of selection will depend on:
• Having large number of population per generation;
• Trait heritability should be high;
• High selection intensity;
• Realized Genetic Gain (Difference between mean of progeny
of selected lines and base population).
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10. Short term improvement
Testing and release
Appropriate experimental design will be used and suitable replications
will be done for trial at the station and high number of location will be
considered for on-farm tests;
At the station, preliminary and advanced trials will be conducted;
On farm, FPVS and demonstrations will be conducted.
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11. Short term improvement
Testing and release
Advanced trial ongoing with 30 performing lines, medium duration and
resistant to ELS
High selection intensity to maximize on plot genetic gain before starting multi-
locations on farm tests;
At least 5 lines will go through VAT and DHS or DUS tests for release and
inscription into the national catalogue;
Store data in a centralized system;
Adoption of BMS for pedigree management , data collection and analysis.
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12. Medium term improvement
Use phenotyping platform to generate data for yield, medium
duration and resistance to ELS ;
Generate marker data by sending leaves samples to ICRISAT India
or to Sweden
Use both phenotypic and genotypic data to detect QTL for yield
and yield related traits, ELS, crop duration and seed quality;
Use QTL data for markers assisted backcrossing;
Use MBDT software in BMS to identify best lines.
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13. Constraints
• Greenhouse;
• Formal quality assurance procedures training;
• Biotic and abiotic stress screening facilities;
• Long term seed storage facilities;
• Low level of mechanization.
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