Improved Peanut Production through Agronomic Evaluation of Cultivars, Enhanced Pest Management Practices, Intensive Yield Analysis and Economics

South Carolina peanut production is unique in straddling the boundary of runner production to the southwest and Virginia-type production to the northeast. Unlike other peanut states where one market type is overwhelmingly predominant, a significant proportion of SC production is in both Virginia-type and runner-type varieties. The end result is that variety evaluation is somewhat more complex than in other southeastern states, and appropriate production systems must be developed for both market types. So although SC is a relatively small state geographically, our peanut growers have big needs when it comes to variety development and performance. This project addresses those needs in both the short and long term in that it evaluates breeder lines for local disease complex tolerance, contributes to belt-wide performance evaluation, and in the short term, gives SC growers the information they need now to make informed variety and market-type contracting choices. Data from this project has provided baseline data of the agronomic and disease performance in South Carolina of newer varieties including TUFRunner 511 and 297, Georgia 14N, TifNV-High 0/L, Sullivan, Bailey II and FloRun 157.