Voandzou is a seed legume cultivated in Burkina Faso with significant nutritional potential. The objective of this study was to assess the genetic diversity of Bambara nut cultivated in Burkina Faso using microsatellite markers. For the study, fifteen SSRs markers were used for molecular characterization of 90 Bambara nut landraces from three agro-climatic zones of Burkina Faso. All markers were 100% polymorphic with an average value of 4.81 for effective alleles. The polymorphism information content (PIC) ranged from 0.654 to 0.867 with a mean of 0.775. Dendrogram classified the accessions in four mixed groups independently of the three agro-climatic zones. This distribution is consistent with the results on the agro-morphological characterization of the same landraces. This information was served as a basic model for breeding and conservation programs of V. subterranea in Burkina Faso.

Bambara groundnut has long been a neglected and understudied crop. Thanks to the new orientations for the développement of agriculture and achievement of food security in Burkina Faso, in recent years, studies on Bambara groundnut have experienced renewed interest. Despites nutritional, agronomic and socio-economic importance and some studies carried out on this crop. The diversity within Bambara groundnut cultivated remains poorly understood. The objective of this study was to assess phenological morphological and agronomic characterization of 20 Bambara groundnut accessions from National Institute for the Environment and Agricultural Research (INERA) genebank. The experimental device used was a completely randomized Fisher blocks with four replications on the site of University Centre of Tenkodogo. These accessions were evaluated on 23 morphological characters including four qualitative characters and 19 quantitative characters. Qualitative traits showed high proportion of oval terminal leaflet shape (70%), cream coloured seeds (45%) and 80% presence of eyes of various shapes and colours. The analysis of quantitative characters showed all the characters are discriminating except the plant spread (PlS) at the 5% treshold with regard to morphological, physiological and agronomic traits and low coefficient of variation (CV) values for the different phenological characters, except for the number of days from sowing to 50% plantlet emergence (EMG50). Pearson correlation matrix indicated positive and negative correlation. Most of the negative correlation was observed between phenological and agronomic traits The dendrogram showed organization of the variability in three different groups on the basis of the physiological, phenological and agronomic traits. The variability expressed among INERA gene bank genotypes showed important variability, which can be exploited in Bambara groundnut breeding programs using the clustering and associations of characters.

Bambara groundnut is a neglected legume crop that contributes to improve global food and face food insecurity. In Burkina Faso, research on Bambara groundnut cropping system were essentially focused on mounding times. Less attention has been paid on the application of fertilizers. Experiments was carried out on the site of Tenkodogo University Centre (11°48’37’’N, 0°22’19’’W), Burkina Faso to study the response of two Bambara groundnut varieties to different NPK application periods. The experiments consisted of a factorial combination of two factors, including the varieties (KVS 235 and KVS 246) and the different NPK application dates (At basal, 7, 15 and 21 days after sowing) in completely randomised blocks with three replications. Characters were collected, including plant height and spread, total biomass at flowering, stalks weight, yield-components and yield. The results indicated that most of characters not varied significantly for both varieties whatever NPK application period except for stalks weight (P = 0.013). The interactions between varieties and NPK application dates had significant effects for only total biomass at flowering (P = 0.048). In addition, pod length has significant effect (P = 0.032) between varieties. The significant effect on the characters mentioned above in both varieties implies that application of NPK fertilizer have influenced the characteristics differently, depending on the period of bringing. NPK application at basal lead to best performance of the results regarding pod and seed dimension and 100-seeds weight and yield. In general, KVS235 outperformed than KVS 246.

Bambara groundnut (Vigna subterranea [L.] Verdcourt) is grown mainly as a food crop in Burkina Faso. Despite its high nutritional value, it has been among the most neglected crops in the country. This study was undertaken with the objective to investigating the effects of genotypes on the physiological traits, yield and yield related traits of the crop and thereby identify the genotypes having better performance for yield and yield related traits. The field experiment was conducted at the Tenkodogo University Centre site, during the 2021 rainy season. The experiment was laid out in randomized complete block design with four replications and eight genotypes were obtained from INERA germplam bank. Data were collected on number of days to 50% field emergence, number of days from sowing to 50% flowering, number of leaves per plant, plant height, plant spread, number of pods per plant, number of one seed per pod, number of two seeds per pod, weight of seeds per plant seed length, seed width,100-seed weight and yield. The data were subjected to the analysis of variance, and means were separated through Duncan’s Multiple Range Test at 95% confidence. The Pearson’s correlation coefficients between pair of characters were computed using SPSS 2.0. Results showed that significant and highly significant variations were observed among genotypes for almost all studied characters, except plant spread and number of one seed per pod.  Majority of the characters had positive correlations. Most of the negative correlation was observed between physiologic and agronomic traits. The result showed that genotypes KVS97-2 (33.75 days; 1578.12 kg.ha-1); KVS360 (34.75 days; 1181 kg.ha-1) and KVS235 (34.5 days; 1167.19 kg.ha-1) performed better than others genotypes in yield parameters and had shorter flowering cycle.

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