Cashew improvement approaches and technologies across countries, and their implication to the Zambian cashew industry

Cashew (Anacardium occidentale Linn.) is an important cash crop in Zambia. However, the cashew production is about 3-20 kgs/tree and the quality of the nuts is extremely poor due to the use of unimproved cashew genotypes. There are variations in cashew trees grown in farmers' fields because cashew is highly cross pollinated. As a short-term measure, farmers are currently planting cashew polyclonal seeds imported from Tanzania. Nevertheless, there are numerous cashew germplasm that were introduced to Zambia since 1940s. These cashew trees have adapted to the local environment and a small proportion of them are high yielding with good nut quality. Researchers need to identify these genotypes in farmers' fields and collect them as mother trees to initiate a cashew breeding programme. In Zambia, cashew research is still at its infancy hence the knowledge and skills are still low among the small-scale cashew farmers. Though cashew improvement programmes are being developed in several countries, there is enormous knowledge and technologies that have been generated from some cashew producing countries which could be adopted and later adapted in Zambia to revamp the whole cashew value chain. The approaches to accelerate cashew improvement in Zambia include; evaluation of germplasm for genetic diversity, conservation of germplasm, introduction of new alleles, selection of elite materials, vegetative propagation techniques, hybridization and marker assisted selection. This paper reviews the various knowledge, technologies and approaches that have been developed over time for cashew improvement and discusses their implication to the Zambia cashew industry.(c) 2023 SAAB. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.