Abstract
Groundnut (Arachis hypogaea), also known as peanut, is one of the major oilseed and confectionary crop grown in ~ 25.4 million hectares across 100 countries achieving a global production of 42.4 Million tons. The crop is mainly consumed as confectionary and edible ingredients in various food products in western countries while used dual purpose (cooking oil and confectionary/table purpose) in the Indian subcontinent. Exposure of the crop to different biotic and abiotic stresses in marginal environments results in low crop productivity in developing countries. Until recently, very limited genomic resources were available in this crop. Traditional breeding approaches, however, could not be effective for enhancing crop productivity. A number of – omics approaches have been deployed to understand the genome architecture, complexity of trait and apply genome diversity in breeding for groundnut improvement. For instance, various genomic resources including high-density genetic maps, reference genomes have been developed. In addition, 300 lines of the reference set and several mapping populations have been re-sequenced to identify millions of sequence variants. Modern trait mapping approaches such as genotyping-by-sequencing, QTL-Seq have been used to map a number of agronomic traits. RNA-seq approach has been used to develop gene expression atlas and identify differentially expressed genes for several traits. In parallel, marker-assisted backcrossing approach has been used to develop the superior lines with enhanced resistance to foliar diseases and also with increased oleic acid content. Several introgression lines for foliar disease, under multi-location trials, have shown yield advantages from 39- 79% as compared to the recurrent parents. Similarly introgression lines for oleic acid have shown enhancement of oleic acid contents upto 79%. We anticipate release of several superior varieties for both foliar diseases and high oleic acid content.