Use of Wild Arachis Species/Introgression of Genes into A. hypogaea L.e. E. Simpson! Colchicine F. hybrid 2n = 3x = 30 and diligence their success rate improved over the next five decades (Gregory and Gregory, 1979;Krapovickas and Gregory, 1994).The first peanut cultivars released from interspecific hybridization were by Hammons (1970) and Simpson and Smith (1975). Hammons released cv. Spancross in 1970 from the cross A. hypogaea x A. monticola Krapov. and Rigoni, which was the same source of cv. Tamnut 74 released by Simpson and Smith. Neither ofthese cultivars had phenotypic characters that could be identified as derived from the wild species. In 1999, Simpson and Starr (2001) released the first root-knot nematode-resistant peanut cultivar, eGAN. This new cultivar contains a gene for the pest resistance which was transferred fromA. cardenasii Krapov. and w.e. Gregory in an intensive backcrossing program (Simpson, 1991).Several programs have released germplasm lines which have been derived from interspecific hybridization, including Simpson et al. (1993) and Stalker and Beute (1993).
Possible Introgression PathwaysThere are at least three possible introgression pathways to A. hypogaea, and they all have variations depending upon the objective ofthe program and the availability of germplasm (Stalker et al., 1979;Simpson, 1991 hypogaea that plant transformation will be the likely method to introduce genes into the cultigen. d) Molecular methods of "inserting" genes into peanut that have been modestly successful and include use of Agrobacterium spp., electroporation, and direct DNA delivery techniques such as the gene gun, whiskers, and sonication. No releases have resulted.Keywords: Amphiploid, hybridization, interspecific, pathways.The desire to transfer genes from wild Arachis species into cultivated peanut has burned brightly since the 1940s when both w.e. Gregory and A. Krapovickas first attempted to cross wild peanuts with A. hypogaea L. Their first attempts were unsuccessful, but with continued effort
IColchicine treatment I Figure 3 shows a diploid/tetraploid route where two wild Arachis species are doubled with colchicine, then the two amphiploids are hybridized to form a tetraploid hybrid that is crossed to A. hypogaea, provided the amphiploid hybrid is fertile enough to make the cross. This pathway has been attempted (C. Simpson, unpubl. data), but to date has proven unsuccessful as an introgression pathway. High levels of sterility are the major factor limiting this technique. Figure 4 shows a third diploid/tetraploid route that in~olves crossing two diploid wild Arachis species, doublmg the chromosome number of the hybrid, then crossing with A. hypogaea. This pathway was attempted in Texas (Simpson, 1991) but, without both A and B genome types in the crossing scheme, the success is limited greatly because of high sterility factors.Some of the sections/species of wild Arachis are so greatly isolated from A. hypogaea that biotechnology will be the only available method to introduce genes from them in...