Flower production and flowering pattern of four groundnut varieties in Sri Lanka.

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.