Sensory Quality Traits of the Runner-Type Peanut Cultivar Georgia Green and its Value as a Parent Compared with Florunnner1

Abstract

Georgia Green has become the dominant runner market-type peanut cultivar in the United States because of its high yield and superior disease resistance to tomato spotted wilt virus. However, the roasted peanut flavor quality of Georgia Green has not been formally reported, and questions regarding its flavor quality have been expressed by the peanut industry. The objective of this study was to compare the roasted peanut flavorqualities of Georgia Green to those of the long-time industry standard Florunner. This study also provided an opportunity to further expand investigations into the parent selection effects on progeny roasted peanut flavor quality. A total of 192 samples of cultivars Florunner, Georgia Green, and Georgia Green's parents, Southern Runner and Sunbelt Runner, were collected from 1986 to 2000 from the Southeast, Southwest, and Virginia-Carolina peanut production regions. A descriptive sensory panel evaluated flavor attributes of a roasted sound mature kernel (SMK) sample from each plot. The sensory attributes of the four genotypes were compared directly, and the data were included in a Best Linear Unbiased Prediction (BLUP) model of breeding value of 112 peanut cultivars and breeding lines. Georgia Green was not significantly different from the industry standard cultivar Florunner in the sensory attributes roasted peanut [4.5 vs. 4.1 flavor intensity units (flu), ns], bitter (3.2 vs. 3.3 fiu, ns), and astringent (3.3 vs. 3.4 fiu, ns). It was significantly sweeter than Florunner (3.3 vs 3.0 fiu, P < 0.05). The BLUPs of breeding value for roasted peanut and sweet attributes of Georgia Green were among the highest of any peanut lines included in the analysis. Based on this finding, widespread use of Georgia Green as a parent should contribute to flavor improvement in peanut breeding programs.

Registration of ‘Georgia-13M’ Peanut

“…From 1986 to 2000 across multiple locations in the United States, Georgia Green was found to have a similar sensory roasted peanutty flavor attribute as the peanut industry standard runner‐type cultivar, ‘Florunner’ (Norden et al, 1969). In this same long‐term study, Georgia Green was also found to be among the highest in breeding value as a parent for roasted flavor and sweet attributes as determined by the best linear unbiased prediction model (Pattee et al, 2003).…”

A Note on Combining Ability for Sensory Quality of Peanut

“…In addition to the parents predicted to have positive effects on peanut flavor, two additional parents were included because of their widespread use among peanut growers: runnertype cultivar Georgia Green (Branch, 1996) and virginia-type cultivar Perry . Georgia Green was later found to have positive BLUPs of breeding value for flavor (Pattee et al, 2003) while Perry was a cultivar with negative BLUPs (Pattee et al, 2001(Pattee et al, , 2002a. The 11 parents were crossed in a half-diallel mating in the summer of 2001 in the greenhouse at the NCSU campus in Raleigh, NC.…”

“…Mean values for intensities of the roasted peanut, sweet, and bitter attributes for the 11 parents were calculated from the same set of data used to calculate BLUPs of breeding value (Pattee et al, 2003). Means were adjusted to common year and location effects and also for the effects of the covariates roast color (linear and quadratic) as an indicator of degree of roast and intensity of the fruity attribute, an indicator of poor environmental conditions pre-and post-harvest.…”

“…Similarly, runner-type peanuts have superior average scores for the sweet and bitter attributes. Best linear unbiased prediction (BLUP) has been used to identify peanut germplasm with putatively beneficial breeding value for sensory attributes roasted peanut, sweet, and bitter (Pattee et al, 2001(Pattee et al, , 2002a(Pattee et al, , 2003, but the practical utility of those predictors of breeding value has not been validated.…”

Registration of ‘Georgia‐09B’ Peanut

“…From 1986 to 2000 across multiple locations in the United States, Georgia Green was found to have a similar sensory roasted “peanutty” flavor attribute as the peanut industry standard runner‐type cultivar, Florunner. In this same long‐term study, Georgia Green was also found to be among the highest in breeding value as a parent for roasted flavor and sweet attributes as determined by the best linear unbiased prediction model (Pattee et al, 2003).…”