• Contact Us
    • Send Feedback
    • Login
    View Item 
    •   Home
    • Journal and Journal Articles
    • Journal and Journal Articles
    • View Item
    •   Home
    • Journal and Journal Articles
    • Journal and Journal Articles
    • View Item
    JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

    Browse

    Whole Repository
    CollectionsIssue DateRegionCountryHubAffiliationAuthorsTitlesSubject
    This Sub-collection
    Issue DateRegionCountryHubAffiliationAuthorsTitlesSubject

    My Account

    Login

    Welcome to the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture Research Repository

    What would you like to view today?

    Ethnobotanical characterization of scarlet eggplant (Solanum aethiopicum L.) varieties cultivated in Benin (West Africa)

    Thumbnail
    View/Open
    Journal Article (4.820Mb)
    Date
    2021-09
    Author
    Aguessy, S.
    Idossou, R.
    Dassou, A.G.
    Loko, Y.
    Yelome, O.I.
    Gbaguidi, A.A.
    Agre, A.P.
    Dansi, A.
    Agbangla, C.
    Type
    Journal Article
    Review Status
    Internal Review
    Target Audience
    Scientists
    Metadata
    Show full item record
    Abstract/Description
    The African eggplant (Solanum aethiopicum L.) is an important traditional vegetable cultivated in tropical regions for its edible fruits. In the Benin Republic, S. aethiopicum is mainly cultivated by rural farmers for food and for its use in traditional medicine. Assessing varietal diversity, endogenous knowledge, production constraints and farmers' preference criteria are of great importance for promotion and conservation purposes. Using rural appraisal tools and methods, an ethnobotanical study was conducted in 680 households across 92 villages. A total of 60 local cultivars were collected and documented in the surveyed sites. We documented 15 farmers’ criteria for agronomic (57.88% of responses), culinary (28.51%) preference, and for economic (13.61%) aspects. Several constraints related to eggplant production in Benin were also recorded. The low market demand (27% of responses), lack of high-yielding cultivars (11.08% of responses), low fruit storability (10.67%), low productivity (9.84%), soil poverty (8.43%), susceptibility to high soil moisture (8.02%), pests (9.56%), diseases (8.45%), and drought (6.38%) appeared to be the most important constraints of the eggplant production system in Benin. In addition to synthetic pesticides, the eggplant farmers use botanical plant extracts such as extracts from Azadirachta indica (Meliaceae) and Hyptis suaveolens (Lamiaceae). It appears that eggplant production is still traditional and is of limited use in Benin. Finally, the currently collected germplasm was proposed for further evaluation using morphological and molecular markers to provide breeders with traits of interest for developing better eggplant varieties and hybrids that are suitable for local environmental conditions and production systems.
    Acknowledgements
    We thank the scarlet farmers for their active collaboration in this study. This work was funded by Laboratory of Biotechnology, Genetic resources, Animal and Plant Breeding (BIORAVE) from ENSBBA - BENIN for the thesis of Scholastique Aguessy.
    https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jafr.2021.100173
    Multi standard citation
    Permanent link to this item
    https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12478/7190
    IITA Authors ORCID
    Paterne AGREhttps://orcid.org/0000-0003-1231-2530
    Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
    https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jafr.2021.100173
    IITA Subjects
    Agronomy; Biodiversity; Plant Breeding; Plant Production
    Agrovoc Terms
    Eggplants; Solanum Aethiopicum; Production; Constraints; Varieties; Diversity
    Regions
    Africa; West Africa
    Countries
    Benin (Dahomey)
    Hubs
    Headquarters and Western Africa Hub
    Journals
    Journal of Agriculture and Food Research
    Collections
    • Journal and Journal Articles4836
    copyright © 2019  IITASpace. All rights reserved.
    IITA | Open Access Repository