March 17, 2016
A visiting group of American specialists has been treated to a sneak peek at the likely future of Australian peanut growing.
The group, from the University of Georgia and Mississippi State University, have been in Australia for a week.
They have been shown growing trials in Kingaroy and Bundaberg by representatives from the Peanut Company of Australia.
On Thursday, the six American scientists joined South Burnett peanut growers and PCA staff at Peter Howlett’s 460 acre property at Benair to inspect two growing trials.
PCA peanut breeder Dr Graeme Wright highlighted a demonstration trial of a new full-season Hi Oleic variety “Kairi” which will be fully released to Australian growers in 2017-18.
Kairi has been bred by the joint PCA / Grains Research and Development Corporation program to have good yield potential and very good foliar disease resistance, especially for net blotch.
It is a cross between “Wheeler”, a proven commercial variety, and “Sutherland” which initially looked promising because of its excellent disease resistance but in practice its yields proved unreliable.
Dr Wright said trials were showing that Kairi was doing well in all regions, dryland and under irrigation.
The visiting US experts also inspected trials of “Taabinga”, a new early maturity (120-130 days) Hi Oleic variety bred by the joint PCA / GRDC program.
Taabinga is a cross between another early-maturity variety developed in Queensland, “Redvale”, and “Sutherland”; it is about a year behind Kairi in the development program.
The Americans also visited the DAF Research Station at Bundaberg and soybean and peanut stress trials at Alloway.
They were particularly interested in the peanut / sugar cane rotation system used in the Bundaberg region.
