EVALUATING EGYPTIAN PEANUT CULTIVARS FOR USE IN THE SPACE PROGRAM

As part of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Advanced Life Support program, several crops are being studied for possible use in bioregenerative life support to provide a source of nutritious food for planetary human space exploration. Peanut (Arachis hypogea L.) is among the list of crops selected for space missions and is an excellent source of oil and protein. Tuskegee University is currently studying peanut growth, nutrition and physiology in controlled environments. For this research, plants were grown hydroponically using nutrient film technique (NFT). Peanuts are grown in a soil-less culture in narrow troughs, and there is an ongoing search for new and improved, high yielding cultivars that are adaptable to growing in NFT. The ideal cultivar would be one with an erect growth habit, concentrating its gynophore and ultimately, pod production around the roots. The objective of this study was to evaluate Egyptian peanut cultivars to ascertain their possible use in future space missions. Two Egyptian cultivars, 'Giza 5' and 'Hybrid 8' were compared to the control 'Georgia Red'. Hybrid 8 produced the highest foliage dry weight when compared to Giza 5 and Georgia Red (224.9 vs. 163.1 and 92.9 g/plant, respectively). The same trend followed root dry weights for the three cultivars (16.1, 12.7 and 4.1 g/plant). Pod count, pod weight and mature seed weights were highest for Giza 5 and lowest for Hybrid 8. However, there were no significant difference between the harvest index for Georgia Red and Giza 5 but both were significantly higher than Hybrid 8 (0.16 and 0.18 vs. 0.05). Based on this study, it is recommended not to use Hybrid 8 in further hydroponics studies but Giza 5 appears to be a suitable cultivar for the NFT system.