The first Australian early maturity peanut cultivar with both 'very good' foliar disease resistance and 'very high' kernel yield potential will be commercially released later this year.

Taabinga has been developed through the Australian Peanut Breeding Program, a collaboration between the Peanut Company of Australia (PCA), GRDC and the Queensland Department of Agriculture and Fisheries breeding program.

PCA breeder Dr Graeme Wright says that for the past decade, the breeding program has invested heavily in developing early maturing varieties to better fit the end-of-season droughts that typify dryland production in areas around Queensland's Burnett region.

Varieties such as Walter, released in 2006, Tingoora (2010) and Redvale (released in 2012), mature about 20 to 30 days more quickly than traditional full-season types.

However, their widespread adoption has been limited because of lower kernel yield performance compared to locally bred and introduced full-season-maturity varieties, such as Middleton, Wheeler, Holt and Fisher.

Added to this, yield potentials under similar conditions have been lower - 50 to 70 per cent of full-season types. These early varieties have also lacked good foliar disease resistance, especially to leaf rust, late leaf spot and net blotch.

The challenge has been to combine the excellent foliar disease resistance traits of Sutherland with the high yield and quality potential of local and introduced varieties - a challenge Dr Wright believes the breeding program has met in Taabinga.

Results from30 multi-season location trials conducted during 2013 to 2018 have shown that the new variety has excellent broad adaption for kernel yield and quality traits.

"We think it could replace the main currently grown early maturity commercial variety, Redvale, especially in the Burnett region, where it has performed the best," Dr Wright says.

More information: Graeme Wright, Graeme.wrigth@bega.com.au; Peanut Company of Australia