Location: Plant Genetic Resources Conservation Unit
Project Number: 6046-21000-013-032-N
Project Type: Non-Funded Cooperative Agreement
Start Date: Nov 1, 2022
End Date: Nov 1, 2025
Objective:
The peanut germplasm collection provides the raw material to improve peanuts grown for commercial production. This includes traits such as yield, seed quality, and resistance to disease. Wild peanut relatives contribute resistance to diseases that commonly afflict peanut. Interspecific hybrids have been produced previously and used in peanut breeding programs as sources of disease resistances. The objective of this project is to evaluate a select set of cultivated peanuts, wild species, and their hybrids for plant and seed quality traits. We will measure the materials for traits including oil, protein, sugar content and fatty acid composition. We will also conduct genetic analyses to identify the possible genetic basis of the traits. These data will be used to identify specific species and hybrids that harbor useful trait combinations such as disease resistance and good seed quality. The new hybrids will then be added to the USDA peanut germplasm collection for use in research and breeding programs.
Approach:
1. New synthetic tetraploid hybrids will be generated by hand-pollination between two diploid wild species and then doubling chromosome number by colchicine treatment. Introgression lines will be generated by selfing or back crossing with cultivated tetraploid peanuts for several generations. Some lines had been created by the Cooperator but needs to be evaluated and characterized.
2. These new lines will be evaluated for fertility, stability, agronomic performance, and biotic stress (such as disease and pest resistance) in greenhouse as well as field.
3. More seeds from these advanced lines will be collected from the greenhouse for chemical analysis (oil, protein, sugar content, fatty acid composition, and other chemical components) and leaf tissues will be collected for genetic analysis with SNP markers/arrays.
4. After chemical and genetic analyses, the unique lines (with combination of good traits) will be recommended for peanut breeders to use and at the same time, these lines will be deposited in our peanut germplasm collection. The relevant information will be posted on the Germplasm Resources Information Network (GRIN) website for requesters and users.
