The Georgia Peanut Commission board of directors has approved $254,000 in research projects for its 2011-12 research budget.

This action was taken during the commission's March board meeting. The research projects approved include 27 project proposals submitted from the University of Georgia, USDA Agricultural Research Service, Fort Valley State, and the University of Nebraska at Lincoln.



"We are proud of our close relationship and partnership with research institutions in the state," says Donald Chase, Georgia Peanut Commission Research Committee chairman. "Peanut growers are pleased to invest in the future by providing monetary support for research and education that has continued to demonstrate a return on our investment."



Georgia's peanut growers invest $2 per ton annually to fund the programs of GPC which include the research funding.

"The importance of peanut producers' investments in research cannot be underestimated," says Emory Murphy, GPC Research Committee secretary. Murphy noted that peanut research and Extension programs have contributed to two consecutive years of state-wide record peanut yields and a five year average yield higher than any prior five year period. "Cultivars planted by farmers today are producing 700 to 1,000 pound an acre more than the cultivars they were growing five or six years ago," Murphy says.