July 17, 2023 (Alexandria, Va.)—The Peanut Research Foundation today released its 2022 annual report, “Harnessing Peanut’s Potential through Investment & Innovation.” Research on disease and aflatoxin resistance, general methodology and research support are included in the foundation-funded research.
The foundation commissioned the country’s top peanut researchers to better understand and help meet some of the biggest challenges facing the U.S. peanut industry, by:
- Incorporating strong leaf spot resistance from a wild species into three cultivars, setting the stage to save growers significant production costs while greatly improving the peanut industry’s sustainability story.
- Identifying a marker for resistance to the soil disease Sclerotinia, which could finally give growers hope for relief from the problematic fungus.
- Identifying markers which appear to impact final aflatoxin levels and making significant progress showing the variation in the genome’s naturally occurring strains of aflatoxin-producing Aspergilus flavus, offering great promise for finally addressing this long-standing problem.
- Building a germplasm population that contains wild species genes in a form readily usable by breeders which could lead to further success in attaining drought tolerance, disease resistance and other desirable traits.
“We are operating in an incredibly competitive global market,” said Jack Davis, TPRF chair and director of technical services at JLA International, in his chairman’s letter. “Without the best new seed varieties possible, the U.S. peanut industry cannot hope to remain global leaders. I think the research we have funded here helps provide our breeders, seed producers, growers, shellers and manufacturers with the best varieties, technologies and knowledge possible.”
