A High-yielding Drought-tolerant Groundnut Variety Abhaya

Groundnut (Arachis hypogaea), an important oilseed and food crop of Andhra Pradesh, India is grown largely as a rainfed crop during the rainy season. Drought is the major abiotic stress affecting yield and quality of rainfed groundnut in the state. Yield losses due to drought are highly variable depending on its timing, intensity and duration coupled with other location specific environmental factors such as irradiance and temperature (Nigam et al. 2001). Thus the groundnut productivity in rainy season in the state ranges between 500 kg ha-1 and 1200 kg ha-1 (Reddy et al. 2003).