Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting

Others present were: Doug Redd, Pamela Copeland, Brenda Kennedy, Franklin Bryant, from the PVQE program, Susan Copeland, Dr. Isleib’s assistant, Phillip Browning and Tara Edwards. At 10:30 a.m., Dr. Maria Balota called the meeting to order. She then turned it over to Dr. Harper to chair the meeting. He asked everyone to introduce themselves. Dr. Harper then asked for administrative comments. Dr. Grabau discussed administrative updates at Virginia Tech. Dr. Crickenberger made administrative comments for North Carolina. Dr. Harper gave administrative comments for TAREC. Dr. Harper asked the committee members if there were any corrections to the minutes from last year’s meeting. Being none, the minutes from last year were approved. The floor was then turned over to Dr. Balota to discuss PVQE updates on production issues in 2013. Dr. Balota commented on the possibility of having mainly high oleic varieties in tests. She explained that due to technical problems, Scott Montfort was unable to be in on meeting via conference call. She went on to discuss the budget needed to continue running the PVQE program effectively. Bob Sutter made a contribution of $20,000 to this year’s budget. Dr. Balota thanked him and commented that more help would be appreciated. Dr. Harper gave the floor to Dr. Isleib to discuss NCSU peanut breeding updates. Dr. Isleib thanked his assistant, Susan Copeland, for handling selection of high oleic lines. He discussed the release of two new varieties, Wynne and Sullivan. He will have twenty-three entries for the 2014 PVQE tests that are high oleics. He discussed the high oleic Bailey crosses. Dr. Harper opened floor for discussion on the transition to High Oleic peanut production in the V-C region. Dr. Isleib explained the risk for seed contamination when high oleic and non-high oleic varieties are grown together. Therefore, Bruce Beahm and Mike Jackson explained the current practices used to maintain seed purity at the J. Leek Associates and other universities. Fred Garner introduced Tara Edwards, who was assigned to show the equipment Birdsong is using to test for high oleic peanuts: a refractometer used at the buying points to evaluate a minimum 10 seeds at one time, and a near infrared (NIR) spectrometer, Seed Meister, that runs 100 seeds from each truck load of peanut. She also demonstrated how these two analyzers work and the demonstration was performed after lunch in the afternoon session. Also after lunch, Daryl Bowman with the NC Foundation Seed Producers, Inc. presented a draft of an additional certification requirement for Wynne high oleic peanut, one of Dr. Isleib 2013 releases. Each cultivar will have its own additional certification requirements. The document was then discussed by the participants. Several suggestions were made relative to the minimum purity of the foundation, registered, and certified seed. Almost unanimously, a minimum standard of 95% of the seed sample for each category to be pure for the high oleic trait was suggested. Acceptable laboratories to perform the testing were proposed J. Leeks Associates for Virginia and North Carolina Crop Improvement for North Carolina. Acceptable equipment discussed includes refractometer, NIR analyzer, and gas chromatograph. A minimum seed sample size was set to 100. It was agreed that suggestions should be included into the document after the meeting and sent again via the PVQE list of Dr. Balota to the PVQE meeting participants. It was considered that this document was a realistic progress towards transition to high oleic peanut production in the V-C region. There were also discussions about how to adopt the transition at the farm level with many suggestions but none was acceptable by both, shellers and farmers. It was believed that practically this transition will have to be approached when future high oleic cultivars with similar yields with Bailey will become available. Dr. Harper asked if there were any particular items to discuss regarding the PVQE program and, being none, he thanked everyone for coming and adjourned the meeting. Respectively submitted, M. Balota Pam Copeland-recorded for Dr. Maria Balota