Ayenan Mathieu A T, Vihou Fabrice, Ambali Mwasilwa, Opoku Jacinta Adoma, Ibiotye Dorcas Olubunmi, Schafleitner Roland
World Vegetable Center, West and Central Africa, Coastal and Humid Regions, Cotonou, Benin.
Council for Scientific and Industrial Research - Crops Research Institute, Kumasi, Ghana.
Front Plant Sci. 2025 Aug 14;16:1631221. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2025.1631221. eCollection 2025.
Okra is a nutritious vegetable of global significance. This crop serves various purposes and presents numerous untapped opportunities. However, several challenges hinder Africa from fully harnessing okra's economic and nutritional benefits, including pest and disease pressures, salinity and cold stress, weak seed systems, insufficient market knowledge, and a lack of value addition. A wealth of okra genetic resources is conserved in gene banks worldwide; however, only a handful have been characterized for agronomic and value-added traits, limiting their use in breeding programs. Although traditional breeding has focused on enhancing yield, disease resistance, and pod quality traits, which remain important, the growing demand for new okra-based products such as pectin, oil, snacks, and coffee substitutes offers new opportunities for farmers, processors, and breeders. Meeting these demands will require incorporating value-added traits into breeding programs, as identified in this review. Understanding the diversity of okra germplasm for value-added traits, their genetic architecture, and developing efficient screening methods is crucial for creating improved varieties that meet the needs of farmers, processors, and consumers. Enhancing the value-added traits of okra will increase production to meet the rising demand. We identified key traits of interest for improvement across different okra uses. Improving okra for biotic and abiotic challenges, as well as integrating horticultural and value-added traits, requires an in-depth understanding of the okra market to define and prioritize market segments along with target product profiles that fulfill their requirements, increased investment in okra breeding, collaboration between public and private seed and processing firms, resource sharing, and strengthening seed systems. Building capacity in okra breeding and seed technologies is critical to catalyzing okra improvement in Africa.
秋葵是一种具有全球重要意义的营养蔬菜。这种作物用途广泛，存在众多尚未开发的机会。然而，一些挑战阻碍了非洲充分利用秋葵的经济和营养效益，包括病虫害压力、盐度和冷胁迫、薄弱的种子系统、市场知识不足以及缺乏附加值。全球基因库中保存了丰富的秋葵遗传资源；然而，只有少数资源对农艺和附加值性状进行了表征，限制了它们在育种计划中的应用。尽管传统育种一直专注于提高产量、抗病性和荚果品质性状，这些仍然很重要，但对基于秋葵的新产品（如果胶、油、零食和咖啡替代品）的需求不断增长，为农民、加工商和育种者提供了新的机会。如本综述所述，满足这些需求将需要将附加值性状纳入育种计划。了解秋葵种质在附加值性状方面的多样性、它们 的遗传结构以及开发有效的筛选方法，对于培育出满足农民、加工商和消费者需求的改良品种至关重要。提高秋葵的附加值性状将增加产量以满足不断增长的需求。我们确定了不同秋葵用途中值得改良的关键性状。改善秋葵应对生物和非生物挑战的能力，以及整合园艺和附加值性状，需要深入了解秋葵市场，以定义和优先考虑市场细分以及满足其要求的目标产品概况，增加对秋葵育种的投资，公共和私营种子及加工公司之间的合作，资源共享以及加强种子系统。建设秋葵育种和种子技术能力对于推动非洲的秋葵改良至关重要。
