The story of the cultivated peanut begins several thousand years ago in South America, where the genomes of two wild ancestors, A. duranensis and A. ipaensis , merged in a rare genetic event.
The team’s genomic analysis of populations of plants that make up the wild peanut species pointed to a region in northern Argentina known as Rio Seco. Researchers surmise that ancient farmers migrating there from Bolivia exposed A. duranensis plants to another species they had brought with them – A. ipaensis , considered the other parent of cultivated peanut.