Offsetting the input cost of breeding plots at peanut belt research stations

Starting in the 2011 crop year researchers using the NCARS and NCDA research stations are responsible for providing half the variable cost of production for the crop under study. In the case of peanut, it was calculated that this comes to $500 per acre. Because there is no mechanism for the transfer of funds from an NCSU grant account to any of the research stations, the mechanism whereby the funds are transferred is to have the NCSU project buy supplies for the research station which then uses the supplies to grow, harvest, and process the project's plots. 

In the 2017 season, Drs. Isleib and Stalker had approximately 34.6 A of actual plots (25.8 A at the Peanut Belt Research Station at Lewiston in Bertie County, 5.7 A at the Upper Coastal Plain Research Station at Rocky Mount in Edgecombe County, 2.2 A at the Sandhills Research Station at Jackson Springs in Moore County, and 0.9 at the Border Belt Tobacco Research Station at Whiteville in Columbus County), most of those acres for selection, seed increase, and replicated trials at the Peanut Belt Research Station at Lewiston, NC, but several replicated trials at UCPRS, one replicated trial at BBTRS, and one replicated trial of cultivated peanut and a seed nursery of wild peanut species at SRS. Because the actual plots must be fit into sometimes irregularly shaped fields that must be filled in with station-planted border, and because there are station-planted strips to allow passage of irrigation equipment, the station superintendents generally calculate area used on the basis of entire fields rather than actual plots.