By Roy Roberson,
Standing between freshly dug rows of Sullivan and Wynne varieties of peanuts, the North Carolina State plant breeder beams with pride at how well the two new high oleic varieties are doing in the PVQE tests at Virginia Tech’s Tidewater Agricultural Research and Extension Center near Suffolk, Va.
Sullivan is named for former North Carolina State Peanut Specialist Gene Sullivan and Wynne is named for former North Carolina State University peanut breeder and College of Agriculture Dean Johnny Wynne.
Both varieties are in foundation seed stock development and could be available to growers in limited supply as early as 2016.
After going through two or more years of testing at several sites in North Carolina, the two new high oleic varieties were sent to the PVQE test program in 2010.
Maria Balota who heads the PVQE program, says both varieties have performed well in tests in the program.
Prior to release, Sullivan and Wynne had to be approved by the North Carolina State Breeders Release Board. This group includes breeders, pathologists and other scientists who are charged with regulating what does and doesn’t get released as official North Carolina State released varieties.
Then, the two new peanuts had to be approved by the North Carolina State Intellectual Properties Committee.
How good are they? “These new high oleic varieties don’t have quite the disease package as Bailey or Sugg, but they are at least statistically comparable,” Isleib says.
“Plus, they are high oleic, and that will add some value in the future,” he adds.
In two years of testing in the PVQE program, both the high oleic varieties were more than comparable to other varieties and all the currently available varieties except Bailey and Sugg.
In terms of loan-price value, Sullivan was rated at $629 per acre and Wynne at $573 per acre. Compared to Bailey at $730 per acre, neither is outstanding, but compared to older varieties like CHAMPS at $528 and Gregory at $470 per acre, they look good, even without the extra high oleic value.
Of the two new varieties, Wynne is a bigger, more upright plant than Sullivan.
Though Wynne has statistically more jumbo pods, both of the new varieties are in the 43-44 percent range for extra large kernels (ELK).
By comparison, Bailey was rated at 40.5 and CHAMPS at 37.8 over the same two year period in the PVQE trials averaged over all sites and years.
In disease resistance evaluations, Wynne has ranked a little higher than Sullivan, but both are in the 34-34 range (in tests at the Southern PVQE site only) for leafspot resistance.
Bailey, by far the best currently available variety, was rated at 38 in the same tests, while CHAMPS, another popular variety is rated at 31.
“Getting increased disease resistance into these varieties has been the focal point of providing higher yield, more profitable and more sustainable varieties to our growers,” the North Carolina plant breeder says.
Future varieties, he adds, are going to have to have the high oleic characteristics. “I’m sure of that. Coming down the pike is a high oleic version of Bailey. It’s a couple of years out in the development process, but it’s coming,” Isleib says.
“I have no doubt varieties of the future will be high oleic. I think that’s the peanut that buyers want, and growers will have to grow what buyers want,” he adds.
Peanuts have gained the reputation over the past few years as being a heart-healthy food. With heart disease continuing to be the No. 1 killer of Americans, it is natural that consumers will look for products that are tasty, easy to use and relatively inexpensive, and of the three most common — peanuts, red grapes and olive oil — peanuts best meets these requirements.
High oleic varieties have been around for a while, but few contain the production traits desired by growers.
High yield potential
At about the same time, Isleib released Bailey, then Sugg, neither of which is high oleic, but both of which contain outstanding disease resistance packages and high yield potential that growers need.
Despite the record rainfall in much of the Southeast peanut belt this year, Bailey in particular, held up well against diseases, and many attribute what appears to be a fair to good peanut crop to the high percentage of these two varieties planted in the region.
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