Australia: Peanuts could be beef's new secret weapon

Dual-purpose peanut varieties could hold the key to diversifying grazing operations across Northern Australia by providing both high-value fodder as well as financial returns from the sale of peanuts. A new project being led by CQUniversity in partnership with the Peanut Farming Services team at Bega Cheese Limited, and principal co-investment from the CRC for Developing Northern Australia, is setting out to test the concept of dual-purpose peanut production through a series of trials at multiple sites across Queensland and the Northern Territory over the next three years. ALSO IN BEEF: The Grain and Graze North project is evaluating different peanut varieties and breeding lines from the Bega-GRDC peanut breeding program that are already known to produce large volumes of foliage, and test them for both their suitability to a range of northern environments as well as their response to an early season biomass cutting and the consequent impacts on nut yield and harvest timing. ...