Philippines Develops Miracle Peanut

Using ICRISAT parental lines, Mariano Marcos State University (MMSU) in the Philippines, has developed its first high yielding peanut variety which can be grown in any of the country's seven regions any time of the year.

The National Seed Industry Council of the Philippines recently approved the new variety for commercial planting. The variety matures in 95 to 100 days and is drought tolerant. It is also resistant to leaf diseases like cercospora leaf spot, rust, mosaic, bacterial wilt, and common cutworms.

The new variety is a selection from a number of advance segregating lines from ICRISAT, and was evaluated at the MMSU reserach farm for six consecutive years and in national cooperative tests during 2000 and 2001. It was a consistent top yielder during the evaluation, with an average of 1.5 tons per hectare in both seasons.