Abstract

Peanut (Arachis hypogaea L.) belongs to the family leguminosae and is one of the world’s largest oilseed crops. This study is the first report on peanut regeneration from Pakistan using four commercially released peanut varieties, that is, Golden, BARI-2000, BARD-479 and BARD-92. Longitudinally, halved cotyledons with removed embryos were employed as explants. Among various tested combinations of BAP and NAA, the best combination was 4 and 0.1 mg/L respectively. BARI-2000 proved to be the best responsive variety for in vitro regeneration in terms of number of shoots/explant (133.3%) and number of rooted plants/explant (124.99%). The optimized protocol, which is the first one in the country, would be used to incorporate important traits in future breeding programmes of peanut in Pakistan.

Key words: Arachis hypogea, de-embryonated cotyledons, BAP, NAA, in vitroregeneration, Pakistan.