Abstract:
Groundnut (Arachis hypogaea L.) has an indeterminate flowering habit, which means that
flowering can occur for an extended length of time during the life cycle. It leads to indeterminate
fruiting habit with pods with various maturity classes at the point of harvest. These factors can
influence the quality of the final harvest of groundnut seeds. Therefore, understanding the
genetical behavior of flowering pattern in existing groundnut varieties in Sri Lanka would be the
basis for improving such traits through breeding or by altering agronomic practices. In order to
understand the flowering pattern of groundnut varieties, four peanut varieties (Tissa, ANKG1,
Lanka Jumbo and ANKGN3) were planted as a pot experiment in a Completely Randomized Design
(CRD) with five replicates from January to April 2021. After the first flowering of each individual
plant, daily flowering count was recorded for nine weeks. According to the observations, all four
varieties had their first flowering within 20-24 days after seedling emergence, and there was no
relationship between the first flowering to the maturity duration of each variety. Total flower
production during the examined period was significantly different among tested varieties.
However, there was a positive relationship between maturity duration and peak flowering period,
with short duration (90-100 days) varieties reaching the peak two weeks earlier than medium
duration (105-110 days) varieties. According to the flowering pattern of tested varieties, Tissa
showed uniform flowering during 3rd week to 5th week. Since the number of mature pods at
harvest can directly influenced by the flower production at early flowering period, future studies
should focus on determining the correlation between flowering pattern and maturing classes of
pods in each genotype. It will provide useful information for the crop improvement of groundnut
with high degree of mature pods.
