Genetic Resources, Diversity and Association Mapping in Peanut

Globally, peanut is an important crop, providing both oil and protein, and gene banks across the world have conserved a large collection of peanut germplasm including wild Arachis species. The key to the success in crop improvement depends on how effectively and effi ciently the new genetic variation is introduced to broaden the genetic base of cultigens. The genus Arachis harbors considerable diversity for morpho-agronomic traits including resistance to abiotic and biotic stresses. Impressive progress have been made towards developing a large number of markers specific to peanut in addition to the technological breakthrough in developing high-throughput genotyping platforms for unlocking the genetic variation present in the germplasm collections. Using core and mini core collections and genomic tools, peanut researchers have identifi ed a number of diverse germplasm possessing agronomically benefi cial traits that are now being used in peanut breeding. Amphidiploids originating from distant wild Arachis species crosses are expected to unravel the variation not earlier available to peanut research community due to bottlenecks associated with peanut domestication