Morphological characterization of released groundnut, Arachis hypogaea L. cultivars for the DUS requirement

摘要

In the present era of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR), the distinctness of the cultivar from other released cultivars is the first of the triad of the DUS for granting any form of protection to the rights of its breads. Keeping this in view, basisof distinctness among seventy released groundnut (Arachis hypogaea L.) cultivars of which 17 each belongs to the Virginia bunch and Virginia runner type of the ssp. hypogaea and 33 belongs to the Spanish type and three to Valencia type of ssp. fastigiata, were studied. Each cultivar was scored for 17 traits, stem, leaf, flower, fruit and seed traits, and reaction to biotic stresses using the Descriptors for Groundnut developed by IPGRI/ICRISAT. The cultivars showed overlapping of descriptor states in various combinations of traits. The branching pattern and leaf colour could distinguish up to sub-species level. The testa colour was distinct in some of the cultivars that can be used as a diagnostic tool for identification of a few cultivars. In clusteranalysis, a combination of 11 characters could distinguish all cultivars. The study indicated that distinction is possible between 70 cultivars using the 11 traits. However, the total number of groundnut cultivars released exceeds 120 and hence to meet DUS criteria as identification of cultivars, some of the distinct morphological characters in coalition with molecular characters may be necessary.