Texas A&M AgriLife leads in peanut research

BY MACKENZIE JOHNSON / Multimedia Journalist

In the scorching hot temperatures of July, a large majority of people excessively apply sunscreen, park themselves in their air conditioned homes and blissfully dream of the cool fall days to come when they can pull out the sweaters shoved into the backs of their closets and place pumpkins on their front porch. 

In the scorching hot temperatures of July, there is also a small minority of people who don’t necessarily look forward to fall for the scary movies and holiday decorations, but rather for the opportunity to finish harvesting the plant they’ve been growing since the spring. 

Although peanuts may not be the first thing that comes to mind for most regarding fall, it is to those who farm them. 

The Peanut Breeding and Genetics Program at the Texas A&M AgriLife Center in Stephenville is a place that prides themselves on the quality of peanuts they produce this time of year and the loads of research that goes into it. 

Team members Kate Costello, Emily Green and Brian Bennett are within the labs and fields that these prized peanuts are developed in and are committed to preserving the over 75 years of rich history the Peanut Breeding and Genetics Program upholds. 

Costello graduated from Virginia Tech University in 2018 with a Bachelors of Science in crop and soil sciences and a focus on crop genetics and breeding before getting a master’s degree in plant pathology at the University of Georgia in 2022. She is now a third year doctoral student and graduate research assistant for the peanut program. 

Green graduated from the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse in 2018 with a bachelor’s degree in microbiology and a minor in chemistry. In 2021, she moved to Texas to work as a lab technician, focusing on biochar at the Stephenville AgriLife Research Center before deciding to earn a master’s degree in the Wildlife and Natural Resources Department at Tarleton.

Upon pursuing her master’s, Green became project coordinator for the Peanut Breeding and Genetics Program when Dr. John Cason, assistant professor and peanut breeder at Stephenville’s research center,  thought she’d be the perfect fit after securing a $6 million grant to collaborate with Chevron on developing a high-oil peanut seed for renewable biodiesel.

Bennett graduated with a horticulture business degree from Tarleton in 2002 and started out with the peanut program as a college student a year prior to graduating. He’s been full time with Texas A&M AgriLife since 2003. Bennett is now a research senior associate and picked up the pursuit of a master’s this fall. 

Although all heavily involved in the program, the three each carry different roles when it comes to the everyday aspect of peanut breeding and research.

“I am not personally very involved in the fieldwork side of things,” Costello said. “Dr. Cason is constantly driving around to different fields in Texas to harvest. Those of us who work mainly in the greenhouse, like me and my fellow graduate student Emily Green, are busy in a different way.” 

Costello primarily is working on the production of peanuts that have high oil content and drought tolerance through crossing, the process of removing the pollen from the flowers of designated “female” plants before they self-pollinate to then take the pollen from the designated “male” plants and manually pollinate the females. 

“This way, we can breed specific combinations in hopes of creating hybrids with our traits of interest,” Costello said. “The project I am on right now is breeding peanuts for high oil content for potential use as biofuels along with the more typical peanut oil industry. We want to create peanuts that have traits that are useful for peanut farmers and those traits are usually beneficial in other ways as well.”

Green’s aim in the Peanut Breeding and Genetics Program is along the lines of essentially helping those commoner farmers. 

“The ultimate goal of my research is to develop peanut cultivars that require fewer inputs from farmers, helping them increase both their profitability and the sustainability of their operations,” Green said. “For instance, cultivars with improved drought tolerance would allow farmers to better manage the increasing duration and severity of droughts brought on by climate change. This would reduce the need for irrigation, saving farmers money on water while helping replenish aquifers and groundwater levels.” 

Bennett’s mark in the program has him where a lot of the fundamentals of the operation unfolds - out in the field, especially in the fall.

“A typical day in the fall can be kind of hectic,” Bennett said. “We can control everything done at the center in Stephenville, but everything we do off station revolves around what the farmers do. We have several farmers that let us plant test plots in their field so we can evaluate our lines under normal growing conditions.” 

The program evaluates plots in Gaines, Terry, Yoakum, Frio, Comanche, Erath and Lavaca counties. 

“When the farmer says he’s planting, we have to go then,” Bennett said. “Same with the digging and the harvesting. You don’t make plans during planting and harvest. We may have a farmer planting in west Texas and south Texas at the same time - we just split up then and go.”

Bennett considers the harvesting process to be more vigorous than the actual planting of the peanuts. 

“We try to be finished with all the field work by Thanksgiving,” Bennett said. “Then we spend the next four months processing all the plots we harvested. We have around 2,500 plots we bring in to process and grade. We try to finish all that by March so we can start shelling seeds to get ready to plant starting mid April. Then it all starts back over.”

Although their individual roles and projects keep these team members busy, there are several objectives the Peanut Breeding and Genetics Program focuses on as a whole. 

“There is a big focus on wild peanut species here at the Stephenville center,” Costello said. “Wild peanut species (Arachis sp.) have many beneficial traits that can be utilized by crossing them with the cultivated peanut (Arachis hypogaea, aka the typical peanut that you see in the grocery store). So a big part of the program here is figuring out which wild peanut species have traits we are interested in and then seeing if we can cross those species with the cultivated peanut.”

Costello credits Dr. Charles Simpson, who’s been working with wild peanuts for more than 50 years, along with many other researchers for maintaining a collection of Arachis germplasm (genetic material from different varieties of peanuts) to build this research off of. 

“There are several people involved in the program,” Bennett said. “We have six full time employees, 13 college students, a doctoral student, a postdoctoral and of course Dr. Simpson, who is in his mid 80s and still working for the peanut breeding program.”

All of these people lend a hand in breeding the top of the line peanuts the program is recognized for, no matter whether those hands are planting in fields, steadying microscopes in labs or filling out forms in the office. 

“The greenhouse crew takes care of early generation seeds and all the crosses being made,” Bennett said. “I have two technicians that I drag everywhere with me to help plant and harvest, and the girls in the offices keep the program going by handling all the paperwork and are always available to help in the field when needed.”

With so much dedication and collaboration involved in the production of each and every individual peanut, team members easily grow and foster a passion for the work they do and the program they do it for. 

“Texas A&M AgriLife Research Centers are known for their innovative approaches to addressing agricultural challenges, and I feel privileged to be part of efforts that aim to improve the livelihoods of Texas farmers,” Green said. “There’s no greater reward than knowing that the hard work we do today will make a lasting difference for someone tomorrow. As I like to say, there’s progress in every pod.”

There’s no doubt that there’s progress in every pod at the Peanut Breeding and Genetics Program in Stephenville, and that proof can be found nowhere better but in the peanuts.