Review on; Application of Biotechnology on Peanut (Arachis hypogaea L.) Improvement

Abstract

The extent of crop improvement dependent on the number of genes that control the trait of interest. Quantitative traits are very difficult to transfer under conventional plant breeding techniques, because they are polygenic traits. Segregation occurs at a large number of loci affecting a trait in such kinds of polygenic trait inheritance.  The phenotypic expression of polygenic traits is highly affected by the variation in environ- mental factors to which plants in the population are subjected. However, conventional plant improvement has been contributing a lot for the existing peanut breeding achievements. This method takes about five to twelve years to develop new variety, thus it could not be able to address the increasing world population food demand as well as future crop improvement programs. Peanut has cross incompatibilities and ploidy barriers between diploid wild and tetraploid cultivated along with poor agronomic performance of interspecific material.  In such scenario, different cell and tissue culture techniques, genomics and genetic engineering methods needs to be implemented in an integrated manner with conventional improvement approach. Therefore, genes of interest can be efficiently incorporated into new crop varieties. This paper reviewed the developments and applications of plant tissue culture and molecular biology and genetic modification in peanut improvement.