Breeding Peanut for Resistance to Foliar Diseases and Arthropod Pests

Approach

The goal of NCS 34P was to breed peanut for resistance to foliar diseases and arthropod insect pests. Peru is the center of diversity for five of the six botanical varieties, and the project will assist Peru in identifying landraces with resistance to rust, and early and late leaf spot. Expectations are also to use these landraces for developing improved germplasm in West Africa and the U.S. NCS 34P later merged with NCS 20P.

Achievements

There was not enough exchange of Valencia peanut germplasm from North Carolina and USDA to Bulgaria, the primary peanut type in Bulgaria. The lines exchanged were not adapted. In Peru, the achievements have been good with advanced breeding lines being considered for release. Several Arachis hypogaea x diploid Arachis species hybrids and interspecific hybrids from ICRISAT appeared to have potential for a breeding program to improve disease resistance. Further work showed that introducing genes from wild species is possible, but extremely difficult and time consuming, because it takes many years to recover fertile progenies.

Focus

Production efficiency