City-headquartered ICRISAT is a member of the Peanut Genome Consortium, a multi-national group of crop geneticists working in co-operation for several years in the peanut genome sequencing project.
The new peanut genome sequence will be available to researchers and plant breeders across the globe to aid in the breeding of more productive, more resilient peanut varieties, an ICRISAT statement said.
Peanut (Arachis hypogaea), also called groundnut, is an important crop both commercially and nutritionally.
"Rich in protein and edible oil, peanut is central to the financial and nutritional well-being of hundreds of millions of farmers and consumers across the semi-arid tropics of Asia and sub-Saharan Africa," Director General of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) William Dar said.
"Improving peanut varieties to be more drought, insect and disease resistant, using the genome sequence, can help farmers in developed nations produce more peanuts with fewer pesticides and other chemicals and help farmers in developing nations feed their families and build more-secure livelihoods," Rajeev Varshney, Research Programme Director - Grain Legumes and Director, Center of Excellence in Genomics, ICRISAT.