Groundnut Breeding

Abstract

IN view of the increasing economic importance of the groundnut, a new investigation of its chromosomes should be made known at once. Mendes¹ reports from São Paulo that Arachis diogii, A. marginata, A. prostrata, and a cultivated form from the Mato Grosso, all have 20 chromosomes, the previously known species and cultivated forms² all having had 40. Evidently the cultivated forms are mostly tetraploid, and their diploid ancestors are now revealed to us for the first time. The tetraploidy of the groundnut may well have arisen at an early stage of its peregrination when it passed from Brazil to Peru in pre-Columbian times³.