Kersting's groundnut (Macrotyloma geocarpum) is a rare and underexploited leguminous crop cultivated in parts of West Africa, which now faces extinction. A study was conducted in northern Ghana, which falls within the Guinea Savannah ecological zone, to establish the status of the crop, its production constraints and prospects for its future development or improvement. Sixteen types of Kersting's groundnut were collected which could be distinguished by three seed colours. It is predominantly grown on a small scale (0.1-0.5 acre) as a sole crop, but is often intercropped with other food crops. Pest and disease are not a significant constraint in the cultivation of Kersting's groundnut. Over-tasked farmers harvest it late when the soil has hardened, and this has been the main constraint to its largescale production. Variation in seed size exists and could be used for crop improvement.

Twelve landraces of kersting's groundnut (Kerstingiella geocarpa Harms), collected from northern Ghana in 2004 were evaluated for plant height, canopy spread, leaf area index, nodule count, days to 50% flowering, fresh and dry shoot weight, fresh and dry root weight, pod number per plant, grain yield and hundred seed weight. The following parameters were similar (p > 0.05) among the landraces: leaf area index, nodule count at 7 and 9 WAP, dry shoot weight at 7 WAP, fresh and dry shoot weight at 7 WAP, number of pods per plant and hundred seed weight. Plant height at 8 WAP significantly varied (p = 0.026) among the landraces. The landraces Boli, Heng milk mottled, Gbangu, Nakori and Puffeon produced the tallest plants. Canopy spread of Heng red mottled, Heng milk mottled, Boli, Nakori, Nankpaduri, Puffeon and Gbangu exceeded other entries at 9 WAP. Days to 50% flowering varied significantly (p = 0.001) among landraces with Puffeon, Gbangu, Heng milk mottled, Nakori and Heng red mottled flowering early. At 7 WAP, fresh shoot weight was significantly (p = 0.002) different among the landraces with Heng milk mottled, Funsi, Nankpaduri, Boli, Sigiri, Dugulatuk, and Gbangu outstanding. Grain yield was highly significant (p = 0.001) with Heng red mottled, Funsi, Puffeon, and Sigiri as best yielders. Six Principal components (PC) were significantly informative in a factor analysis. The PC1 contained 90.76% of the total variation in the collection. A cluster analysis revealed that the measured traits accounted for only 12% of the variation with two major clusters.

Faced with adversarial climatic and physical conditions and an inept socioeconomic development priorities, Northern Ghana remains one of the regions that are most vulnerable to climate-related shocks and disturbances in semi-arid Africa. Because of the effect of frequent floods, droughts, and bushfires, entire livelihoods in Ghana's predominantly smallholder agricultural population are under threat. In this paper, we present a model for community-based resilience assessment. This model was developed through an experiment conducted in selected rural communities in the Tolon and Wa West Districts in the Northern and Upper West Regions of Ghana. This experiment underpinned an ongoing five-year collaborative research project, Climate and Ecosystem Change Adaptation and Resilience Research in Semi-Arid Africa: AnIntegrated Approach (CECAR-Africa), and involved researchers and scientists from institutions in Ghana and Japan. Drawing on the findings from extensive literature review, field surveys, focus group discussions, unstructured interviews with various stakeholders, and participatory observations, we developed a matrix for assessing the different categories of community 1 United Nations University-Institute for the Advanced Study of Sustainability (UNU-IAS), Tokyo, Japan 2 University for Development Studies, Wa and Tamale, Ghana. 3 University of Ghana, Department of Geography and Resource Development, Legon, Accra, Ghana 4 United Nations University-Institute for Natural Resource in Africa (UNU-INRA), Accra, Ghana 5 Ghana Meteorological Agency, Accra, Ghana. 6 The University of Tokyo, Todai Institute for Advanced Study, Integrated Research System for Sustainability Science (IR3S), Tokyo, Japan. resilience (ecological, engineering, and socioeconomic). The outcome of this resilience matrix, herein called an "integrated" assessment model, offers a mix of factors that could improve societal reorganization when faced with shocks or disturbances. The integrated model provides a workable assessment criteria and key indicators for community level resilience assessments. This experiment proved valuable and highly effective in selecting case study communities for CECAR-Africa. The next step will involve the testing and development of similar criteria and indicators to measure household level resilience.

No abstract

Phosphorus is a critical nutrient for crop production. The soil phosphorus deficit in sub-Saharan Africa is one of the most important constraints on crop productions. Resulting from the high phosphorus fixation capacities of highly weathered acidic soil coupled with the relatively low total phosphorus, the impact of this deficit is particularly pronounced in the case of rice cultivation. Phosphate rock is a promising alternative to water-soluble phosphorus fertilizers, but its low solubility has so far prevented its widespread adoption in the region. This study examined the results of a direct application effect of phosphate rock produced in Burkina Faso phosphate rock (BPR) on rice yields in on-farm trials conducted in the Guinea savannah and Equatorial forest zones, and on a phosphate rock decision support system (PRDSS) model. We initially hypothesized that BPR direct application will show little effect on rice yield due to its low solubility as same as previous studies. However, our study found that direct application of BPR has an effect on rice grain yield comparable to that of chemical water-soluble phosphate fertilizer, although according to PRDSS simulations, direct application of BPR had little effect compared to the effect of watersoluble phosphate fertilizers. The recognition of BPR effect on rice yield can enhance rice cultivation along with the aspect of usage of indigenous phosphorus resource in sub Saharan Africa (SSA).