Peanuts are plants of the tropical zone, therefore, for its growth and development, high temperature indicators are needed during a fairly long growing season. The climatic parameters of the south of Ukraine correspond to the needs of this culture, and today there is positive experience in growing peanuts in this region.
In order to increase the efficiency of growing peanuts in the conditions of the Steppe zone, it is necessary to carry out genetic selection work to study and select a more adapted source material in order to create highly productive Ukrainian varieties adapted to the arid zone conditions.
At the initial stage of this work, it is necessary to have clear signs and characteristics for evaluating the studied genotypes, and the existing methods for describing the characters and conducting an examination for distinctness, uniformity, and stability are incomplete and do not meet the requirements for in-depth work on private genetics and culture breeding.
For our work, we used 18 peanut genotypes as a material, which make up the collection of the Institute of Oilseeds of NAASU. Studies were carried out in 2018 and 2019, in different weather conditions. All measurements, observations and statistical processing in the study of samples were carried out in accordance with generally accepted methods.
When conducting a comparative analysis of the two methods for describing the signs of underground peanuts, it was found that one of the methods contains 23 signs and the other 17. The signs of the vegetative part of plants that characterize the habit and structure of the leaf predominate in both methods.
We have identified and proposed for description 9 new characters in peanut plants: 2 - leaf characters (additional leaves and pubescence); 1 - the structure of beans (weight 100 beans); 1 - an economically valuable trait (the presence of nodules on the roots); 5 - flower features (size and color of the flower and border).
In terms of plant habitat, Ukrainian Stepnyak and Krasnodar 13 varieties were distinguished, which had the highest height (43.8 cm) and the largest number of branches (9.3 pcs.).
In addition to morphological identification features for the description and examination of distinctness, uniformity and stability, we have also studied the quantitative characteristics of underground peanuts.
It was established that the height of peanut plants in the field conditions of the south of Ukraine ranged from 14 to 44 cm. The highest variety was the Ukrainian Stepnyak variety, and the shortest one was Pink large.
The largest number of branches is 9.3 pcs. noted in the variety Krasnodar 13, and the smallest 4.62 pcs. - at L3. And the largest flower of 1.91 cm stood out White-pink 3. The quantitative traits we studied are characterized by continuous variability, which is due to the interaction between genes and the environment.
Thus, to identify varietal variability in underground peanuts, it is necessary to use both existing methods, and in the near future, work should be done to combine them with the inclusion of new identified characters to more clearly identify the genotypes of this new valuable oilseed crop.
