Introgression of disease resistance genes from Arachis kempff‐mercadoi into cultivated groundnut

Abstract

Abstract Arachis kempff‐mercadoi is a wild species from the section Arachis. All kempff‐mercadoi accessions originate from the Santa Cruz province of Bolivia and they represent Arachis species with the A genome. From molecular analysis it was found that although cultivated A. hypogaea is made up of A and B genomes, A. kempff‐mercadoi may not be as closely related to it as are some of the other A genome species. Arachis kempff‐mercadoi is of interest because it has multiple disease resistance. It was crossed with a Spanish A. hypogaea cultivar which is susceptible to foliar diseases and to the insect pest Spodoptera litura. The success rate of the cross A. hypogaea (2n = 40) ×A. kempff‐mercadoi (2n = 20) was very low, but it could be increased by culturing immature seeds in vitro. Although the hybrids were triploids, a few fertile pollen grains were obtained due to the formation of restitution nuclei in the F1 plants. Interspecific derivatives at the BC2F2 generation were scored for early leaf spot, late leaf spot and to Spodoptera damage. Screening results showed that 29% of the derivatives had both early and late leaf spot resistance and that less than 5% of the derivatives had resistance to both the foliar diseases and to Spodoptera.