Variability in Groundnut Genotypes for Tolerance to Drought

Abstract

Groundnut (Arachis hypogaea L.) is one of the world’s most important legumes, both in subsistence and commercial agriculture in arid and semi-arid regions of the world. Global warming, an increasing threat, is expected to increase the water scarcity in the environment, affecting plant growth and metabolism. Groundnut yield in rain-fed areas has been limited by drought stress because pod yield and other growth parameters have been severely affected. Twenty five groundnut genotypes including four local checks (B-4, Rajashri, Baidehi and Jayanti) were composed and an experiment was conducted during 2010 and 2011at the National Oilseed Research Program (NORP), Nawalpur, Sarlahi, Nepal. The experiment was conducted in a randomized complete block design in three replications. The objective of the study was to determine the genetic variability in different groundnut genotypes to drought tolerance. The analysis of variance indicated highly significant differences for most of plant the characters. Remarkable levels of variability have existed among the groundnut varieties that are essential in groundnut improvement. The genotypes ICGV-99171, ICGV-98089, ICGV-97100, Baidehi, ICGV-00440 and B-4 were observed better for drought tolerance with high pod yield. It is suggested that these genotypes could be grown under regions of limited rainfall and may be used as parents in breeding programmes for developing drought tolerant groundnut cultivars. Nepal Journal of Science and Technology Vol. 14, No. 1 (2013) 41-50 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3126/njst.v14i1.8877

Genetic Variation of Groundnut (Arachis hypogaea L.) Genotypes in Semi-Arid Zone Sudan

“…The results showed highly significant variation among the genotypes for most of the trait studies in both seasons (Table 2), a similar conclusion was reported by Thakur et al (2013); Zaman et al (2011). They had suggested that selection based on these characters will be meaningful in predicting for pod yield in groundnut.…”

“…Groundnut (Arachis hypogaea L.) is annual legume allotetraploid species with 2n = 40 (Dwivedi et al, 2001) widely cultivated under rain-fed conditions in arid and semi-arid regions of the world (Thakur et al, 2013). It is an important crop used for a source of food, edible oil, feed, digestable proteins, vitamins, minerals, phytosterols, fuel, cosmetics and green manuring crop for improvement of soil validity (Reddy et al, 2003;Ronghua et al, 2007;Shoba et al, 2010;Sudhir et al, 2010;Zaman et al, 2011).…”

Variability in groundnut for end-of-season drought tolerance

“…The mean sum of squares due to genotypes were found to be significant at one per cent level of probability (p < 0.01) for all traits under study indicating that sufficient genetic variability exist among the investigated material under both the environments. These results are in conformity with previously published results of (Thakur et al, 2013 [40] , Hamidou et al, 2012 [18] ). Previous studies also reported over significant genotypic differences for RWC (Clavel et al, 2006) [10] , Bootnang et al 2010) [7] , SCMR (Upadhya et al, 2011 [43] , Babita et al, 2006 [3] , Nigam et al, 2005 [29] , Nigam and Aruna, 2008 [28] , and Sheshshayee et al, 2006 [36] ), pod yield (Puangbut et al, 2009, 2010 [32,33] and Jongrungklang et al, 2008 [20] ), root to shoot ratio (Thakur et al 2011) [41] , and MSI (Pranusha, 2011) [31] .…”

“…The reduced sensitivity of membrane stability index to drought is supported by altered electrolyte leakage due to injury of the cell membranes and also reflects the higher ability of plants to maintain membrane integrity which determines tolerance towards drought (Shinde et al, 2010) [37] . A higher value of SCMR in the genotype indicates that more water efficient under moisture deficit conditions due to more density of chlorophyll (Thakur et al, 2013) [40] . Further, the overall increase in SCMR indicates the higher chlorophyll content in plants under moisture-limited conditions as a mechanism for drought tolerance in peanut Geravandi et al…”

“…Groundnut is one of the principal oilseed crops both in substance and commercial agriculture and cultivated worldwide in tropical, sub-tropical and warm temperature areas where in drought stress severely affected pod yield and growth related traits leading to drastic loss of yield and productivity (Thakur et al, 2013 [40] , Cuc et al, 2008 [12] , Coulibaly, 2013 [11] , Pimratch et al 2008) [30] . The extent of yield loss due to drought in groundnut is depends on duration and intensity of drought (Thakur et al, 2013 [40] , Nigam et al 2005 [29] ) and the crop growth stage at which drought occurred (Reddy et al 2003) [35] . Even in irrigated situation, groundnut may get drought experience due to insufficient and timely of adequate water.…”