Groundbreaking Peanut Research Coming Out Of Its Shell In Florida
July 10, 2015 If you happen to visit University of Florida’s Plant Science Research and Education Unit in Citra, you might find something somewhat unexpected: more than 1,500 varieties of peanut plants growing on a sizable plot of land. The crop is part of USDA’s germplasm network to maintain and research different types of peanuts.
Greg MacDonald
Photo courtesy of University of Georgia
“Nobody had done a side-by-side study of yield, grade, biochemical components and genetic background of these peanut varieties,” said Greg MacDonald, a UF/IFAS weed scientist, who oversees the project. “We put together this study and we’re now able to determine those things for each plant line.”
A major part of MacDonald’s work is helping to find disease-resistant cultivars.
For example, he’s trying to try to stave off what happened in the 1990s, when tomato spotted wilt virus threatened the majority of runner peanuts, which are used to make peanut butter.
“We were seeing 30% to 40% reductions in yield,” he said, adding that one old variety collected in the 1950s from South America was found to be resistant to the virus. “Most all the runners now can be traced back to that one line, which is one of the reasons we maintain the collection.”
In addition, through peanut research, MacDonald and his team work with farmers in Haiti. Their work there is part of the Feed the Future Peanut & Mycotoxin Innovation Lab, supported by the U.S. Agency for International Development.
The project works with an organization called “Meds & Foods For Kids,” which uses locally grown peanuts to produce what’s known as a “ready to use therapeutic food,” a fortified peanut paste that’s been formulated to provide all of a child’s basic nutritional needs. It comes in a plastic packet and can be squeezed directly into a starving child’s mouth.
This research is a joint effort between UF/IFAS agronomy and the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service.
Support for this research has been provided by The Peanut Foundation, the Georgia Peanut Commission, and the Florida Peanut Producers Association.
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