Interaction of myo-inositol, seed phosphorus,oil and yield in groundnut genotypes

In India, groundnut is gown on 5.7 million hectare with a production of 4.7 million tonnes, with an average productivity of 0.8 tons haduring the rainy season and in the post-rainy season it is grown on 0.9 million hectare with a productiop of 1.5 million tonnes, and an average productivity of 1.6 t ha(Radhamani and Singh, 2008). The productivity in India is low with low seed quality. It is attributed to several biotic and abiotic stresses during crop growth and post harvest storage. The polyol inositol, an important sugar alcohol has a major role in mobilization of nutrients during kernel development and has strong affinity for water and is found to accumulate in plant under moisture stress and low temperature stress. Phytic acid, a phosphorylated derivative of myo-inositol, functions as the major storage form of phosphorus in plant seeds (Hegman et al., 2001 ). Phosphate and mineral nutrients are released upon hydrolysis of phytic acid and utilized during seed germination and for seedling growth (Robay, 2001). Increasing phospho~s level increased oil content in groundnut (Chodhary et al., 1991) and seed protein (Hossain et al., 2007). Knowing the role of inositol in mobilization of nutrients particularly the phosphorus during seed development an attempt was made to know whether the foliar application of myoinositol during pod development and seed filling in groundnut enhance translocation of assimilates and enrich seeds with phosphorus and oil in ten groundnut genotypes. A field experiment was conducted at the Main Agricultural Research Station, University of Agriculture Science, Dharwad during kharif 2008. The experiment consisted of two treatments, foliar application of inositol @ (T2) 100 ppm at 65 DAS (During pod and seed development) in 10 genotypes of groundnut (TAG 24, JL 24, R-2001-3, K-07, GPBD 4, GPBD 5, K-134, TKG-19A, Gimar 1, and GPBD 6) and another set of genotypes maintained without application as control (T 1). The experiment was laid out in factorial design with 20 treatment combinations in three replications. The genotypes were harvested at physiological maturity and pod yield was expressed as Kg ha-. The random samples of kernel were collected in each replication and ground to fine powder and oil was extracted by Soxhlet apparatus using petroleum