Groundnut Farming

Lesson 1.1 — The crop that fruits underground

Groundnut (peanut) is Africa's great oilseed-legume: food, cooking oil, peanut butter, snack, livestock feed and soil improver in one plant. Its strangest feature drives everything in this course: groundnut flowers above ground but fruits below it. After a flower is fertilised, it sends down a peg — a stalk that drills into the soil — and the pod develops underground at the peg's tip. Loose soil, calcium in the podding zone, and undisturbed pegs are therefore not details; they ARE groundnut agronomy.

• Season: 90–140 days depending on type — a rains-season crop for semi-arid and savanna zones on light sandy-loam soils.
• A legume: fixes its own nitrogen and leaves fertility behind — the premier rotation partner for maize and cereals (a story you know from the Beans course).
• Yields: African average ~800–1,000 kg/ha in pods; good management with improved seed reaches 2,000–3,500 kg/ha.

Lesson 1.2 — Two families of groundnut

Ask extension for released varieties for your zone, and read two columns before any other: rosette resistance and days to maturity. Module 4 explains why rosette resistance can be the whole harvest, and Lesson 5.1 explains why maturity days matter more in groundnut than almost any crop.

Lesson 1.3 — The aflatoxin sentence, stated on day one

One word will follow this whole course: aflatoxin — the invisible toxin made by Aspergillus moulds in stressed, damaged or badly dried pods. It causes liver cancer, stunts children, and closes export markets. Everything you will learn — end-of-season stress management, gentle lifting, fast proper drying, sorting, dry storage — is also, simultaneously, aflatoxin control. Groundnut done right is safe food and premium exports; done carelessly it is quietly dangerous. This course teaches it right.

Lesson 2.1 — Seed: handle like eggs, shell at the last minute

Groundnut seed is a living embryo in a thin skin, and cracked seed does not grow. The rules:

• Store seed in the shell; hand-shell only 1–2 weeks before planting. Shelled seed loses viability fast and cracks in bags; the pod is nature's seed packet.
• Shell gently by hand for seed (machines for food/sale stock, not seed); select bold, uniform, uncracked kernels with intact skins; discard shrivelled, mouldy or discoloured ones — that sorting is also your first aflatoxin cull.
• Source improved, rosette-resistant varieties from certified/QDS suppliers or your own best plot; refresh every few seasons. Test germination the Bean-course way: 50 seeds, damp cloth, count at 5–7 days; below 75–80%, adjust rate or source better seed.
• Where recommended locally, treat seed with a fungicide seed dressing against soil rots; where groundnut is new to a field, rhizobium inoculant (groundnut-type) helps nodulation.

Lesson 2.2 — Land: loose, level, and limed where sour

Plough/dig to a fine loose tilth 15–20 cm deep — pegs and lifting both demand it. On crusting or wetter soils, low ridges or raised beds help; on light sands, flat planting is fine. Groundnut hates acid soils' aluminium and needs calcium where pods form: where soils are sour or pops (empty pods) are known locally, apply lime or gypsum — gypsum at flowering is the classic podding-zone calcium fix (Lesson 3.2).

Lesson 2.3 — Density: the quiet yield (and rosette) decision

Plant DENSE and plant EARLY, at the first good rains. This is not only yield arithmetic: a closed canopy established early is the classic cultural defence against rosette disease, because the aphids that carry it land preferentially on sparse, late, gappy stands (Module 4 completes this story). Gap-fill within two weeks. Seed rate: commonly 60–100+ kg of good kernels per hectare — budget for it; thin stands are the most common groundnut mistake in Africa.

Lesson 3.1 — The pegging law: weed early, then hands off the soil

Groundnut weeding has a hard deadline written by the plant itself:

• Weeks 2–6: weed thoroughly — two clean hoeings/hand-weedings before flowering ends. The crop is small, weeds are murder on it, and the soil may still be worked freely.
• From peak flowering/pegging (~6–7 weeks): STOP deep soil work near rows. Every hoe stroke now tears pegs and buries none — each broken peg is a pod deleted. Hand-pull big escapes only, stepping carefully.
• Light earthing-up at final weeding (just before pegging peaks, especially for bunch types on ridges) banks loose soil where pegs will land — the last soil work of the season.

Lesson 3.2 — Feeding a legume

Lesson 3.3 — Water rhythm

Critical moisture windows: establishment, and above all flowering–pegging–pod fill (roughly weeks 5–11) — drought there cuts yield hardest and, at season's end, flips the aflatoxin switch (Module 4). Early planting into the rains is the main water strategy; on ridges, tied ridging harvests storms in drier zones. Waterlogging even briefly yellows and stunts the crop — drainage matters on heavier land.

Lesson 3.4 — Groundnut in the farm system

Rotate cereals → groundnut → cereals: the cereal that follows commonly gains the equivalent of a meaningful fertiliser dose from fixed N and residues. Never follow groundnut with groundnut — soil diseases and leaf spots build fast. Intercropping with widely spaced cereals is traditional; keep the cereal sparse or the shade cost exceeds the benefit. And plan the haulm harvest: groundnut hay (the vines after lifting) is premium livestock feed that sells or feeds your own animals — in many regions worth 20–30% as much as the pods themselves.

Lesson 4.1 — Rosette: the epidemic disease

Groundnut rosette is Africa's signature groundnut disease — a virus complex transmitted by aphids, found nowhere else in the world. Infected plants become stunted bunched 'rosettes' with mottled curled leaves (chlorotic yellow or green form) and yield nothing. In epidemic years unprotected late-planted fields lose 50–100%. The defence stack — you already hold most of it:

1. Rosette-resistant released varieties — widely available across the continent; the first line and the reason Module 1 sent you to that column.
2. Early planting + dense stands — the closed canopy the aphid hates (Module 2's promise kept).
3. Rogue infected plants early, while they are few — each rosette is an aphid virus-fountain.
4. Insecticide against aphids is a narrow supplement in seed plots and epidemic outbreaks, not a habit — resistance + agronomy do the real work.

Lesson 4.2 — Leaf spots and rust: the slow thieves

Early and late leaf spot (brown/black spotted, yellowing, defoliating leaves from the bottom up) and groundnut rust are everywhere groundnut grows; together they quietly take 20–50% of yield and most of the haulm value. Management: resistant/tolerant varieties, rotation and destruction of volunteer plants and old crop debris (the spores' home), and — where the crop justifies it — 2–3 fungicide sprays (e.g. chlorothalonil/mancozeb-type or triazole per local recommendation) starting when the first spots appear around flowering. A defoliated crop also drops more pods at lifting: leaf health IS harvest efficiency.

Lesson 4.3 — The aflatoxin chain, part one: the field

Lesson 4.4 — Field pests worth knowing

Lesson 5.1 — The maturity test: open pods, read shells

Groundnut hides its harvest date underground; the calendar only estimates it. From the expected window onward, lift 3–5 sample plants weekly and open pods:

• Ready: ~70%+ of pods with the inside shell wall darkened (brown-black veining/blotching), kernels plump, filling the shell, skins coloured for the variety.
• Too early: white inner shells, watery pale kernels — light pods, poor oil, poor grades.
• Too late: pegs rotting, pods detaching in the ground (lost at lifting), Spanish types sprouting if rains linger, and aflatoxin risk climbing daily.

Lesson 5.2 — Lifting and the windrow cure

1. Lift with hoe or fork entering BESIDE the row, loosening under the pod zone, pulling plants gently so pods come attached; hand-glean the row for detached pods — in good ground gleaning recovers 5–10% of the crop.
2. Shake soil off. Never leave lifted plants flat on wet soil.
3. Windrow/stook to dry, pods UP: invert small bundles so pods face sun and air with foliage beneath, or build small A-frame stooks/racks (the 'Mandela cock' style stack in Southern Africa) — pods off the ground, air moving through. Field-dry 3–7 days by weather.
4. Then strip/pluck pods from haulms; stack haulms as hay (Module 3's second harvest); finish pod drying on mats, tarpaulins or raised racks — never directly on bare soil — turning daily.

Lesson 5.3 — Sorting: the aflatoxin checkpoint you control

Before storage or sale, hand-sort and discard: mouldy, discoloured, shrivelled, insect-holed and broken-shell pods (and later, at any shelling, the same classes of kernels). Research across Africa shows sorting alone removes the large majority of aflatoxin from a farm lot, because the toxin concentrates in exactly the damaged fraction. Sorted rejects go to disposal — not into home food, and not quietly into livestock feed (aflatoxin passes into milk and harms animals too).

Lesson 5.4 — Storage

• Store in the shell — the pod protects kernels from insects, damage and moisture swings. Shell only for sale, processing or seed.
• Dry pods in clean woven sacks on pallets/racks in a dry, ventilated, rodent-proofed store; hermetic bags (your Beans-course technology) work excellently for shelled kernels and seed stock.
• Inspect monthly; any musty smell or visible mould means re-dry and re-sort immediately.
• Well-stored in-shell groundnut holds quality 6–10 months — carrying you from glut prices to the lean-season and festive peaks.

Lesson 6.1 — Five ways to sell a groundnut

Lesson 6.2 — An honest one-hectare budget

Lesson 6.3 — The peanut butter startup

The most accessible value-add in this course: roast (drum or pan, even and light — burnt is bitter, under-roasted is flat), blanch/rub skins off, mill to butter (hand or small motor mill; two passes for smoothness), a pinch of salt, into clean jars/tubs. Start-up gear from a few hundred dollars; sell to shops, schools and households. Two absolute rules: only sorted clean kernels ever enter the roaster (aflatoxin concentrates in butter made from rejects — the toxin does not roast away), and taste-test every batch. Your Module 5 discipline is literally the brand.

Lesson 6.4 — Records, seed saving and the growth path

Per plot per season: variety and seed source; planting date and stand count at 3 weeks; weeding/gypsum/spray dates; lifting date with the shell-test evidence; pod and haulm weights; drying days to rattle; sorting reject percentage; storage checks; sales by date, form, price. Report card: stand density, days-to-dry, and reject percentage — the three numbers that predict both yield and safety. Save seed from your best plot in-shell, sorted, hermetically if shelled. Growth path: year one — one well-run hectare plus hay income; year two — storage timing plus shelling/grading; year three — peanut butter or oil-and-cake processing, and the documented-quality premium channels.