Utilizing Stress Inoculated Resistance to Manage Drought and TSWV in Peanut

Peanut production in the southeastern United States is likely to be more frequently affected by periods of drought due to changes in global climate patterns as seen in recent years. These same changing climate patterns are expected to compound water scarcity stress through increasing both biotic and abiotic stress in general. For this reason, it is critical to determine practical applications for growers to manage and minimize plant stress. Ultimately, by increasing overall crop stress tolerance, optimization of productivity under a new stressful "norm" is possible. Management solutions for plant stress are varied, but a common approach may be through the utility of stress inoculated resistance (SIR). In SIR, common crop stress defenses and processes may be upregulated through the use of chemical elicitors (Roberts and Taylor, 2016). These elicitor compounds lead to acclimation of the crop and provide improved defenses, particularly to stresses that occur during reproductive developmental periods. By utilizing chemical elicitors, growers may be able to condition the crop to better withstand stress (biotic or abiotic) later in the season when yield losses to stress would be greatest. These compounds may also have benefits to crop performance including increased root growth allowing for greater water and nutrient access under an array of production conditions (Taiz and Zeiger, 2010).