Assessment of growth and productivity of five peanut cultivars and genetic diversity using RAPD markers

Abstract Background This study was conducted to evaluate the genetic diversity of five peanut cultivars grown under field conditions. A field experiment was conducted using five peanut cultivars (Giza-5, Giza-6, Ismailia-1, Gregory, and R92) in a randomized complete block design with five replications during two following seasons to estimate the performance of five peanut cultivars for vegetative growth, yield, and yield component traits as well as seed quality traits. Twenty RAPD primers were used to identify a unique fingerprint for each of five cultivars. Results Giza-6 cultivar surpassed all the tested peanut cultivars in the most vegetative growth traits and yield and its components traits, while the lowest values were observed in Giza-5 cultivar. The dendrogram constructed from RAPD analysis showed that Gregory and Giza-5 were the most distant among five peanut cultivars. Conclusions RAPD markers are useful in the detection of genetic diversity of peanut. The availability of genetic diversity is important for the genetic improvement of peanut.