ABSTRACT
The peanut (Arachis hypogaea L.), commonly known as groundnut, earthnut, monkeynut, pinder, orgoober,isbothanoilseedcropandafoodgrainlegume(Krapovickas,1969).Oneoftheworld’s mostimportantoilseedcrops,alongwithsoybean,cottonseed,rapeseed,andsun¡ower,itisalso arichsourceofvegetableproteinandisgrownin107countriesaroundtheworld(Wynneand Gregory,1981;Upadhyayaet al.,2005).Approximately53%ofthetotalglobalproductionofpeanut is crushed for high quality edible oil, 32% for confectionary consumption, and the remaining 15% isusedforfeedandseedproduction(Dwivediet al.,2003).Peanutseedscontain25%–30%protein, about50%oil,20%carbohydrate,and5%˜berandash.Propertiesofpeanutoilaredeterminedby the fatty acid composition. Approximately 90% of peanut oil is composed of palmitic acid (16 carbons andnodoublebonds:16:0),oleicacid(18:1),andlinoleicacid(18:2).Althoughmanystudieshave identi˜ed genetic differences in the fatty acid composition in peanuts, most have examined a limited number of genotypes (Knauft and Wynne, 1995).
