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Researchers in Auburn University’s College of Agriculture are using a $490,000 grant to accelerate efforts to breed a drought-tolerant peanut plant, a development that would be a game changer for the industry.

Peanuts continue to be a staple of the Southeast farm economy, but water limitations have a detrimental effect on yields and producer income. In fact, the American Peanut Council has identified drought—along with aflatoxin contamination—as one of the top two challenges facing the $14 billion U.S. peanut industry.

“Irrigation is a major component of water use in the drought-prone southern United States—a region that is responsible for the bulk of domestic peanut production,” said Charles Chen, a professor of peanut breeding and genetics and head of the College of Agriculture’s peanut breeding program.

Chen also is heading the research team working on the nearly half-million-dollar grant from the USDA-National Institute of Food and Agriculture. Funding for the research also is being provided by the National Peanut Board.

The development of peanut cultivars with improved tolerance to drought should decrease the amount of irrigated cropland and help alleviate some pressure on agricultural water use, Chen said. At present, there is no drought-tolerance rating for peanut varieties grown in the United States.

“The U.S. peanut crop offers an ideal system to study both the genetic basis of drought responses and develop molecular and physiological targets to improve yield in the face of drought,” he said.

“Dryland peanut cropping is common. For example, 65 percent of U.S. and 90 percent of Alabama production is not irrigated, in part because of its tolerance to short-term drought conditions. However, longer-term and mid-season drought reduces yield by more than $50 million annually.”

In situations where producers have the option of providing water through irrigation, the greatest challenge is when to irrigate and how much per application, said John Beasley, head of the Department of Crop, Soil and Environmental Sciences and a former peanut agronomist.

“Water is our most precious resource, and we must use it efficiently,” Beasley said. “A peanut crop needs approximately 22 to 23 inches of water in a crop year, the majority of which is needed in the eight-week period of 70 to 125 days after planting. For producers without the capacity to irrigate, during that eight-week period, they are at the mercy of Mother Nature to provide 15 to 20 inches of that 23 total inches in that narrow window of a 20-week season.”

The research being conducted by Chen and his team is crucial, he said.

“If Dr. Chen’s research program can identify drought tolerance in peanut genotypes, this will be a game changer for producers who grow peanuts under rain-fed conditions,” Beasley said. “Peanut cultivars that are more water-use efficient will allow for higher yields, better quality and less risk of aflatoxin when there is less rainfall at critical times of the growing season.”