Assessment of Phenotypic Variation and Agronomic Type based Distribution of Genotypes Associated with Oil Content in Groundnut (Arachis hypogaea L.)

Groundnut (Arachis hypogaea L.) is a major contributor to global cultivation due to its rich source of good-quality vegetable oil in seeds. In the current investigation, 184 groundnut genotypes were evaluated across two seasons, season-1 (S1) and season-2 (S2) to study the subspecies level variation for oil content in the Arachis subspecies and agronomic types. Significant variability in oil content (39.6%–52.2%) was detected among the groundnut genotypes. The accessions with higher oil content were predominant in the Spanish Bunch/Valencia Bunch types, whereas the accessions with comparatively low oil content were more prevalent in the Virginia Bunch/Virginia Runner types. The genotypes ICG 4746 (S1- 52.2%, S2- 51.7%), ICG 12370 (S1- 51.6%, S2- 48.4%), ICG 4955 (S1- 51.1%, S2- 50.5%) demonstrated higher oil content across both the seasons. These genotypes with high oil content hold potential for their use in breeding programmes to develop groundnut varieties with increased oil quality.