Peanut, a new old crop

Peanut (Arachis hypogaea),
a new old crop
for European agriculture
From: Proceeding of the third congress of the European Society of Agronomy.
Abano-Padova, settembre 1994, p. 732-733
by Marino Perelli, Paolo Faella & Renzo Maggiolo

The peanut (Arachis hypogaea), probably originated in South America, grows in tropical and subtropical regions throughout the world. World production of peanuts is 22-23 million tons and the international trade involves only 5-6% of total production. Europe is the most important importer of peanuts (500,000 tons per year). Italy imports more than 30,000 tons yearly, mainly from USA, Argentina and China (Figure 1).

This century the peanut was grown in Italy (Figure 2.), Spain and Greece, but the growers gave up the crop for the high labour requirement, especially for harvesting. Now, new harvesting machines are available at relative low cost.

Methods
A comprehensive research programme investigating the potential of peanut production is currently under way in northeastern Italy. The tests comprise seeding date, population densities, crop, harvesting and post-harvesting practices.

Eleven USA cultivars of peanuts were tested in 1993, and six cultivars in 1994, both from «Runner» and «Virginia» group.

Peanut consumption
Figure 1. Total Italian consumption of peanuts. Data derived from ISTAT (1935-1992).
Peanut production
Figure 2. Italian area and production of peanuts (three year moving average).
Data derived from ISTAT (1935-1992).

Results
The first results show that peanut may be successful grown in northeastern Italy, with an average yield of more than 4.5 t ha-1 and a good commercial quality of kernels.

The tested cultivars show variable response to Italian environmental conditions, with performances that are generally better, and sometimes quite different, form results obtained in USA.

Many fungi, insects and nematodes have been shown to cause peanut diseases (Morris Porter et al. 1990), and many of them occur in Italy. Nevertheless, in the first year of tests, no specific diseases occurred to peanuts.

The peanut harvesting occurs in two stages and it requires a specific digger and the «peanuts combine» to separate the pods from the vines. In northeastern Italy special care must be taken about soil conditions, especially soil moisture and mechanical harvesting must be done before the end of September.

Post-harvesting practices also require special care, especially drying, which is required to reduce humidity for safe storage, but may produce heavy damage to pod and kernel quality.

References

ISTAT. 1935-1992. Annuario di statistica agraria. Roma
Morris Porter et al. 1990. Compendium of peanut diseases. APS Press, St. Paul, MI.

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