Development of resources for Arachis genomics. Arachis

Arachis hypogaea is an allotetraploid organism with a very limited variation of molecular markers among cultivars and breeding germplasm (Halward et al.). The diploid relatives exhibit many desirable agronomic traits such as disease resistance. Any directed effort to utilize diploid wild peanuts to introduce new, or improved, traits will require genetic maps of the diploid species. Also Arachis is a basal clade of the legumes. As such knowledge of the peanut genome contributes to understanding of genome evolution in the legumes.