Scott Tubbs is the cropping systems agronomist at the University of Georgia, located in Tifton, Georgia. He spoke to the tourists about a variety trial he is conducting at the Ponder farm, located in Tifton. The Ponder Farm trial has 10 different cultivars, nine of which are releases that have come out since Georgia-06G and Georgia-06G was set as the commercial standard for this trial. In combination with the variety trial, they also have inoculated and non-inoculated peanuts out there with Bradyrhizobia inoculant to try and help with nitrogen fixation. Each one of the varieties is represented with four replications, either inoculated or non-inoculated. Five of the varieties have come out of the University of Georgia breeding program and three of the varieties came out of the University of Florida breeding program. They also had one variety out of the USDA breeding program in Tifton, Georgia and one variety out of the USDA breeding program that is a cooperation between Auburn University and the National Peanut Research Lab in Dawson, Georgia.
In these varieties, what they often see is based on the primary breeding location. Since these breeding programs are scattered throughout the Southeastern United States and even in different states in the peanut producing areas, often they see different pest pressures. Sometimes the breeding that is done for these peanuts is surrounded by keeping different pest pressures at bay. So, tomato spotted wilt virus is a primary threat that they have been focused on in variety breeding over the last 30 years or so and many of these varieties have better tomato spotted wilt virus resistance than Georgia-06G, our current industry standard cultivar.
However, some of the varieties that have come out of the University of Florida breeding program often don’t hold up as well in this environment here in Tifton, Georgia, as they do down in the southwest corner of the state, closer to where the peanuts are bred. So, they were able to show you some varietal differences out in the field for tomato spotted wilt virus resistance and that different varieties have a different vegetative growth habit. Some have a more prominent main stem while some have more of a prostate growth habit and grow closer to the ground with a more prostrate vine habit. Some of these varieties are his agronomic research program for the first time this year. The yield on some of these varieties have performed just as well and held up just as well as Georgia-06G. He feels that they are at a point where Georgia-06G, even though it has dominated acreage for the last 12 to 15 years in the state of Georgia and in the entire southeast runner-producing area, some of these other varieties have the potential to take over some acreage from Georgia-06g because of their yield potential being just as good and having even better pest resistance to certain diseases such as the case of TifNV- High O/L, it is a root knot nematode resistant variety. They have some up and coming varieties that have very strong yield potential and may be able to take over some of the acreage.
From a buying point standpoint however, many of the buying points don’t like to handle too many varieties. It makes for a difficulty in separating, segregating and storing those peanuts when there’s too many varieties that are commercially available. So, they really try to pinpoint down to three to five cultivars that have the strongest yield potential, the strongest disease packages, and meet the needs of what growers might be facing in the majority of the fields.