Next-Generation Crop Breeding Approaches for Improving Disease Resistance in Groundnut (Arachis hypogaea L.)

Abstract

Breeding programs across the globe focus on improving the groundnut/peanut yield, quality, and resistance to abiotic and biotic stresses. Diseases are widespread across the groundnut growing regions reducing the pod yield and impairing the kernel and haulm quality and are therefore economically important. Development of disease-tolerant/resistant cultivars for major groundnut diseases was achieved through breeding that used disease-resistant sources or its derivative as one of the parents, and “disease screening” to advance the selected breeding populations to next generation based on the disease reaction. Therefore, a reliable and repeatable disease screening protocol is critical to make progress for improvement of disease resistance. However, owing to the changing climatic scenario, and with challenges in disease screening, it may be difficult to improve genetic resistance for diseases with breeding methods that rely only on disease screening. Genomic tools enable selection of the disease-resistant/moderately resistant phenotype by the use of DNA markers thus circumvent the need to screen large number of “selection candidates.” Moreover, with the recent advances in -omics technologies and sequencing of peanut genomes, it is possible to identify the genomic regions governing resistance to diseases. This chapter describes the major diseases of groundnut, genetics, and sources of host resistance and the new breeding technologies that can be implemented in breeding disease resistance which is critical in attenuating disease-incurred damage and progress toward making groundnut varieties more resilient to disease outbreaks.