Genetic Variation in the US Peanut Mini-Core Collection for Agronomy, Seed Chemistry, and Nutrient Quality Traits in Peanut.

The ongoing genome sequencing effort in peanut will result in numerous molecular markers that can be applied to the diverse collection of recently purified mini-core germplasm. This will provide an opportunity to mine valuable genes for peanut cultivar improvement. Association mapping based on linkage disequilibrium (LD) provides a more effective way to map trait loci since ancestral recombination events that occurred in natural populations present a potentially large number of alleles per locus to associate markers and traits. Phenotyping of the US mini-core collection have demonstrated large genetic variations in yield, seed size, grade, resistance to early and late leaf spot, TSWV, seed chemistry and nutrient quality. In-depth phenotyping of this diverse collection is likely to identify markers that can be employed by breeding programs to enrich the marker-traits detection. Some superior accessions with desirable traits have been identified for peanut cultivar improvement.