Groundnut (Arachis hypogaea L.) is the fourth most important oil seed crop in the world. The late spots and rusts are foliage diseases more common and more destructive of groundnut which cause severe yield losses up to 70% and reduces the quality of the pod and fodder. The present investigation aimed to identify the sources of resistance to leaf spots & rusts from the newly identified genotypes as well as from wild species and to study the way in which these were responding to the natural disease epiphytotic conditions. Twenty four groundnut genotypes were screened against leaf spots and rust diseases under natural epiphytotic conditions in field at, CRS,Aliyarnagar through AICRP experiments during Rabi 2024-2025 . Screening was carried out using infector row technique and the observations of disease intensity and rate of infection were recorded using 0-9 scale. Twenty four groundnut genotypes were screened for Early Leaf Spot, Late Leaf Spot, Rust & Alternaria leaf spot diseases of groundnut. Among the AVT-I entries screened for major diseases of groundnut, four entries viz., AIS-2024-7,AIS-2024-8, AIS-2024-9 and AIS-2024-11 showed resistance to leaf spots and rust diseases. AIS-2024-3, AIS-2024-4 & AIS-1-2024-3 are resistant to ELS, AIS-2024-7 found to be resistant to LLS, AIS-2024-1, AIS-1-2024-3, AIS-1-2024-7 are found to be resistant to Rust. Except 6 entries all the entries were resistant to Alternaria leaf spot disease. The susceptible check Co2 recorded maximum leaf spot disease grade of 7. The resistant lines will be useful to develop introgression lines using marker-assisted backcrossing approach to improve foliar fungal disease resistance in popular groundnut varieties.

Keywords:Arachis Hypogaea L; Breeding; Leaf Spot Disease; Resistant Genotypes; Screening