Introgression of wild alleles into the tetraploid peanut crop to improve water use efficiency, earliness and yield.

The introduction of genes from wild species is a practice little adopted by breeders for the improvement of commercial crops, although it represents an excellent opportunity to enrich the genetic basis and create new cultivars. In peanut, this practice is being increasingly adopted. In this study we present results of introgression of wild alleles from the wild species Arachis duranensis and A. batizocoi improving photosynthetic traits and yield in a set of lines derived from the cross of an induced allotetraploid and cultivated peanut with selection under water stress. The assays were carried out in greenhouse and field focusing on physiological and agronomic traits. A multivariate model (UPGMA) was adopted in order to classify drought tolerant lines. Several lines showed improved levels of tolerance, with values similar to or greater than the tolerant control. Two BC1F6 lines (53 P4 and 96 P9) were highlighted for good drought-related traits, earliness and pod yield, having better phenotypic profile to the drought tolerant elite commercial cultivar BR1. These lines are good candidates for the creation of peanut cultivars suitable for production in semiarid environments.