Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
tocopherols among many runner- and Virginia-type breeding lines. In
these tests,
the genotypic variance associated with
α
-,
β
-,
γ
-, and
δ
-tocopherols and total tocopherols was 40%, 19%, 37%, 34%, and
42%, respectively. The concentration of tocopherols in the U.S. peanut
mini core collection ranged from 59 to 147.6, 0.6 to 10.8, 25.4 to 113.7,
1.2 to 14.6, and 111.8 to 232.4
g 100 g
1
fresh weight, respectively, for
μ
α
and total tocopherols. PI 502037 and PI 502111 are reported to
contain 82% of
-,
β
-,
γ
-,
δ
-tocopherol, which may be useful in breeding programs
aimed at improving the
α
-tocopherol levels in peanut cultivars (Dean
et al. 2009). Clearly, more such investigations are needed to identify
peanut germplasm rich in
α
-tocopherol, and the availability of the mini
core collections in peanut (Upadhyaya et al. 2002; Holbrook and Dong
2005) provides researchers opportunities to mine genetic variation in
tocopherols in germplasm collections.
α
C. Iron and Zinc
Micronutrient de
ciency occurs widely in the developing world. Both
Fe and Zn are important micronutrients affecting human health. The
search for nutrient-dense (Fe and Zn) peanut germplasm for use in crop
improvement programs has just begun. Researchers at ICRISAT have
evaluated the ICRISAT peanut mini core collection accessions for three
seasons, which revealed signi
cant genotype and GEI for grain Fe and
Zn. They identi
ed 48 accessions with higher Fe content (25
-
30mg
kg
1
), 43 accessions with higher Zn content (33
44mg kg
1
seed), and 23
-
34.2mg kg
1
)
contents, with some of them having superior agronomic traits. ICG
4750, 7963, 14705, and 15419 were highly diverse, contain high amount
of Fe and Zn, and were stable for either or both nutrients and their
25.9mg kg
1
) and Zn (
accessions high in both Fe (
eld
performance was as good as the controls (Upadhyaya et al. 2012b).
Variation in Fe and Zn among these accessions was within the range
previously reported (Branch and Gaines 1983).
D. Bioactive Compounds
The plant polyphenol
trans
-resveratrol (3,5,4
´
-trihydroxystilbene) is
mainly found in grapes, peanuts, and berries (Manach et al. 2004;
Paredes-López et al. 2010) and mostly concentrated in the skin. It
displays a wide range of bene
cial effects on humans (Pace-Asciak
et al. 1995; Jang et al. 1997). There has been little research on variation
in
trans
-resveratrol in peanuts. Sanders et al. (2000) found that it ranged
from 0.02 to 1.79
gg
1
per seed in 15 peanut cultivars, whereas it was
μ
