EVALUATION OF SOME EGYPTIAN PEANUT CULTIVARS VIA MOLECULAR GENETICS

Abstract

This study was carried out at the Genetics Department, Faculty of Agriculture, Ain Shams University, Shoubra El-Kheima, Egypt, and Field Crops, Department of the National Research Center, Dokki, Giza, Egypt, during the period from 2012 to 2017. Five peanut cultivars namely; Giza 5, Giza 6, Ismailia-1, Gregory and R92 were used in this study, which were obtained from Oil Crop Research Department, Field Crops Institute, Agriculture Research Center, Giza, Egypt. These five peanut cultivars were grown for two seasons (2013, 2014) in a randomized complete block design with five replications at the Research and Production Station of the National Research Center in El-Nubaria, Al-Beheira Governorate, Egypt, to evaluate the performance of these cultivars for oil content and some related traits. In addition, molecular markers were performed by using PCR based technique such as RAPD-PCR and SSR-PCR techniques to obtain molecular markers associated with oil content trait and to show the genetic relationships among the five tested peanut cultivars. The obtained results can be summarized in the following steps: 1. Field experiments a) vegetative growth traits 1. Leaf area index did not recorde significant differences, while the other traits showed significant differences among the five tested peanut cultivars. 2. Giza-6 cultivar surpassed all the tested peanut cultivars in the most vegetative growth traits, except plant height and leaf area traits, while the lowest values were observed for Giza-5 cultivar. 3. R92 cultivar exhibited the highest values for plant height, leaf area traits.