Background: Resistance to foliar fungal diseases along with oleic acid trait, are important objectives of groundnut breeding. Among foliar fungal diseases, rust and Late Leaf Spot (LLS) cause significant economic loss and high oleic trait is preferred in industry that enhances economic values of crop. Methods: Morphological characterization of the 186-groundnut germplasm lines/genotypes for ten yield attributing traits and their significance of correlation was analyzed using SPSS ver. 19 software at 1% and 5% probability level of significance. Screening for LLS and rust diseases was done employing 10X SNP assay at ICRISAT, Hyderabad, India. Selected superior groundnut germplasm line(s) were screened for presence of FAD2B allele responsible for high oleic acid traits using allele specific marker. Result: Significant and positive correlation was found between dry weight and hundred pod weight (r=0.0.801) and harvest index (r=0.0.830). Molecular characterization along with morphological characterization identified highly diversified lines of groundnut. This study reports 78 foliar fungal disease resistant groundnut germplasm lines. Selected 11 groundnut germplasm lines represented resistance against LLS and rust diseases along with FAD2B allele for oleic acid trait.

Groundnut is an important oilseed crops with high nutritional values. Yield of groundnut is constrained owing to diverse biotic and abiotic factors. Amongst biotic stresses two foremost foliar fungal diseases viz., late leaf spot and rust are universal and sparingly significant. Both conventional and modern breeding methods may be applied for improvement of groundnut. The current investigation was carried out to recognize genetic variability present among different groundnut germplasm with the use of morphological characters and SSR markers with the screening of resistant to leaf spot and rust resistant genotypes. In morphological examination, the analysis of variance divulged highly substantial differences among 48 germplasm lines. Initial screening of Germplasm was tried with the use of 125 SSR markers. But, based on banding pattern, 21 markers were found to be the best and selected for amplification of whole set of genotypes. Out of 21 markers, 16 were found to be highly polymorphic. Highest PIC value (0.8196) was detected for marker S021 representing 81% diversity. SSR Markers viz., PM42, PM204, PM377, S052, S076, S078 and S078 have PIC value more than 0.5, confirms their superiority in detection of polymorphism among studied germplasm lines. UPGMA analysis assemblage all the germplasm lines into three major clusters. Most of the foliar disease resistant genotypes were grouped together with higher genetic resemblance. Polymorphic markers identified in the study may be utilized further for molecular diversity analysis and the identified resistant genotypes may be employed further for the improvement of the crop.