UPLBRDE News Service

The Bureau of Agricultural Research (BAR) has confirmed the viability of several varieties of peanuts from the India-based International Crop Research Institute for the Semi Arid Tropics (ICRISAT).

BAR said the potential peanut breeding lines were identified through the project “Field Testing of ICRISAT Legume Varieties and Technologies in Selected Regions in the Philippines.”

These legume varieties were found to be capable of adapting to Philippine climatic conditions and could be developed and propagated commercially.

The five peanut germplasms and breeding lines or selections confirmed to be suitable under local conditions were UPLB Pn 10, NSIC Pn 11 and Pn 14 or the Namnamas, NSIC Pn 12 or Ilocos Pink and recently the Asha peanut or NSIC Pn 15. All of them have passed the standard field testing requirements of the National Cooperative Test (NCT) and the National Seed Industry Council (NSIC.) Apart from peanuts, the project also studied the viability of pigeon pea and chick pea.

The following breeding lines were tested through on-station adaptability yield trial (AYT) in Regions 1, 5,6,7,8, 9 and 10: ICGV 00350; ICGV 01376; ICGV 99046; and ICGV 01376 for peanut; ICPL 88039, ICPL 88034, ICPL 87091, ICPL 161, ICPL 81, ICP 8863, ICP 7035, ICPL 87051, and ICPL 87119 for pigeon pea, and; ICCV 93952, ICCV 93954, ICCV 94954, ICCV 92944, ICCV 92311, ICCV 2, ICCV 95311, and ICCV 95332 for chickpea.

These breeding lines were compared to the existing national varieties (check variety) like Asha peanut, Namnama 1 and 2 and the NSIC Pn 12 for peanut while pigeon pea and chick pea were compared to the existing varieties.

Among the parameters observed were: Days to flower, days to maturity, number of pods per plant, biomass yield, number of seeds per pod, seed weight and seed yield.

Based on the results of the national evaluation conducted at BAR December 16, 2009, the ICGV 00350, ICGV 01376 and ICGV 99046 were the dominant breeding lines for peanut.

The peanut experts who worked on the national evaluation were Elmer Enicola, university researcher of the Institute of Plant Breeding of the University of the Philippines-Los Baños (IPB-UPLB) and Ms. Rose Mary Aquino of the Department of Agriculture-Cagayan Valley Integrated Agricultural Research Center (DA-CVIARC).