

Previous studies under field conditions have investigated the response of 300 accessions from a groundnut reference collection to drought stress as well as selected contrasting lines. Groundnut is largely grown in rainfed areas in the semi-arid tropics, and known pod yield decrease can reach 72%. Now assessment of a sub-set of 60 genotypes from the groundnut reference collection in lysimeters, which give similar conditions to fields and allow measurement of crop water requirement, could lead to the identification of new sources and/ or traits of tolerance to drought for improving groundnut productivity.