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Charles Simpson honored for lifetime dedication to peanuts

7Jul

Story by Kay Ledbetter

For 54 years, Charles Simpson, Ph.D., has been making a difference in the peanut products America eats – and on July 1, he was honored by the American Peanut Council with the 2021 Lifetime Achievement Award at the USA Peanut Congress in New Orleans.

Simpson, peanut germplasm explorer and breeder for Texas A&M AgriLife Research in Stephenville, was recognized “for his tireless efforts in peanut germplasm collection and preservation.”

Charles Simpson

Charles Simpson, peanut germplasm explorer, breeder and Texas A&M AgriLife Research emeritus (Texas A&M AgriLife photo)

Simpson, a professor emeritus in the Texas A&M College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Department of Soil and Crop Sciences plant breeding program, retired in 2003 but still maintains an extensive germplasm collection at the Texas A&M AgriLife Research and Extension Center at Stephenville.

“This award is the most prestigious honor in the industry,” said Shelly Nutt, executive director and leadership in the Texas Peanut Producers Board, who nominated Simpson. “Dr. Simpson has been recognized internationally for his efforts in collection preservation, maintenance, distribution and use of wild and exotic germplasm.

“Still today, he remains one of the leading experts in wild species peanuts and his accomplishments have opened the possibility of using the vast reservoir of genes in wild peanuts to improve cultivated peanuts,” Nutt said in her nomination.

Simpson still diligently “volunteers” daily at the greenhouses to preserve and utilize the peanut collection, mentor colleagues and students, and provide expert advice to industry partners, said Bill McCutchen, Ph.D., Texas A&M AgriLife center director at Stephenville.

“Dr. Simpson is a treasure of knowledge for the industry and very deserving of this award,” McCutchen said. “Even almost 20 years after his retirement, he actively remains involved in maintaining the collection here, making him the foremost authority in the U.S. with respect to collection, evaluation and preservation of genetic resources of peanuts.”

The Texas Peanut Producers board has pledged funds to the Charles Simpson Endowment for the AgriLife Research peanut collection, one of the largest, most diverse collections worldwide, and can no longer be replicated, McCutchen said.

A lifetime dedicated to peanuts

Simpson has spent over 50 years serving the peanut industry as a breeder, successfully transferring at minimum seven different disease resistances as well as high oil content into over 23 cultivars and an additional seven germplasm releases.

One of his major accomplishments over his long career occurred when his program released the first root-knot nematode-resistant peanut cultivar created from a wild species peanut introgression. He introduced resistance genes from wild species collected in east-central Bolivia in 1980 to address root-knot nematode, a serious threat to peanut production in parts of Texas.

He released COAN, the first root-knot resistant peanut cultivar in the world, as well as Webb, the first high oleic nematode-resistant peanut released by the AgriLife Research program. The gene introgression for nematode resistance was made from a complex hybrid involving three wild species peanuts.

But Simpson might be most renowned in peanut breeding circles for his lifelong passion for collecting and preserving wild and cultivated Arachis germplasm. His extensive germplasm-gathering forays have included trips to Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay.

In 1980, Simpson assumed the role as co-leader of the Arachis – flowering plants in the pea family – germplasm project and traveled annually until 2004. His desire to collect and preserve the peanut species carried him to remote and inaccessible areas of South America on over 28 collection expeditions, his nomination stated.

His work was funded by the International Board for Plant Genetic Resources, a part of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in Rome, Italy. Through his collection trips, Simpson and his colleagues collected over 1,800 wild peanut accessions, over 5,500 cultivated landraces and over 500 Rhizomatous accessions.

Charles Simpson in greenhouse

Charles Simpson, Ph.D., stands among his collection in the greenhouse. (Texas A&M AgriLife photo by John Cason)

Today, his research continues to influence. In a recent U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture grant, Plant Breeding Partnerships: Genomics-Assisted Introgression and Molecular Dissection of Resistance to Pests and Diseases in Peanut, the breeding team will transfer novel wild species alleles from a population developed by Simpson into a set of back-crossed breeding lines sharing a common, popular genetic background. Each possesses a small segment of chromosomal DNA inherited from the wild species parents.

Sharing knowledge for future generations

Simpson has been author or co-author on 22 species descriptions and was a leader in translating the peanut monograph describing 69 of the 81 wild species into English. In addition, he was co-editor of subsequent supplemental publications with new species descriptions.

He also has authored or co-authored 133 refereed journal articles, 179 scientific presentations, 131 popular press articles and 19 book chapters.

“I am deeply grateful for this recognition of the work I have loved doing for the past 53 years,” Simpson said. “There are no plans on my part to stop doing the work to aid the younger generation in utilizing the valuable plant collection we have assembled. The collection will be the lifeblood of peanut improvement for many years into the future.”

Fast, accurate way to check peanut plants for healthy traits

3Jul

By: Olga Kuchment

The lengthy process of breeding better peanut plants can be sped up by using a biophysics technique, Raman spectroscopy.

Texas A&M AgriLife biophysicists and plant breeders have demonstrated the use of Raman spectroscopy to quickly scan the levels of oleic acid in peanuts. Oleic acid, a monounsaturated oil, lends peanuts a longer shelf life. The oil is also healthy for the heart.

man in greenhouse with peanut plants

The Raman spectrometer may help researchers screen plants for beneficial traits more quickly, easily and cost-effectively.

They also used the method to determine how resistant plants are to nematode pests.

Using Raman spectroscopy is quicker, cheaper and more portable than standard approaches of screening peanut varieties for these beneficial traits. The study was recently published in Scientific Reports.

“We’ve shown that the method can save a huge amount of time in our screening process,” said John Cason, Ph.D., coauthor and Texas A&M AgriLife Research peanut breeder, Stephenville. “You can get a ‘fingerprint’ of a particular peanut and tease out large amounts of information. The possibilities are endless.”

“Raman spectroscopy is commonplace in biochemistry but mostly unknown in the world of farmers and plant breeders,” said Dmitry Kurouski, Ph.D., principal investigator of the study and assistant professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, Texas A&M College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. “Yet it is portable, inexpensive, accurate and fast, and can transform digital farming.”

Funding for the study came from AgriLife Research and the Governor’s University Research Initiative. In addition, the Texas Peanut Producers Board and Southwestern Peanut Shellers Association provided funding for Cason’s group to buy a hand-held Raman spectrometer.

Benefits of Raman versus established methods

In the past, if Cason wanted to analyze the pest-resistance of plants or the fatty acid content of peanuts, he would extract DNA from plants or send samples to an off-site lab for infrared analysis. Both methods are considerably more time-, cost- and labor-intensive than Raman, Cason said.

For this project, the collaborators used a commercially available, hand-held Raman spectrometer, a device about the size of a shoebox. Raman spectroscopy measures how materials scatter harmless laser light. Each material has a specific scattering “fingerprint” that offers clues about many types of molecular information in a one-second scan. Running a scan is relatively straightforward, Cason said, but the collaborators are still developing and fine-tuning ways to analyze the data.

man in peanut field

John Cason, Texas A&M AgriLife peanut breeder, is testing a hand-held Raman spectrometer to analyze peanut plant traits in the field.

Cason’s team received training and guidance from Kurouski and three young scientists from his lab: Charles Farber, a graduate student; Lee Sanchez, a research assistant; and Stanislav Rizevsky, Ph.D., a visiting scholar.

Scans of peanut leaves could distinguish nematode-resistant and susceptible plants with roughly 75% accuracy. What’s more, scans of peanut seeds could distinguish with 82% accuracy the varieties with high levels of oleic acid.

Other peanut projects in the works

The team is currently expanding its studies of peanut plants. The first goal is to use Raman to quickly isolate peanut varieties with high tolerance for drought conditions. The team is also looking into expanding its studies of nutritional content to help breed more nutritious peanut varieties.

One limitation of the technology is that the scanner needs to be in contact with the material being scanned. Kurouski’s team is working on a Raman “telescope” to enable scans of plants that are 100 feet away.

“Biophysicists and peanut breeders don’t usually associate in the same circles, but this has been a good project,” Cason said. “I don’t think it will be the last from this team.”

Cason named new peanut program leader in Stephenville

12Aug

By: Kay Ledbetter
Contact: John Cason – john.cason@ag.tamu.edu

Dr. John Cason has been named Texas A&M AgriLife Research assistant professor for peanut breeding and genetics in Stephenville, where he will supervise the AgriLife Research and Extension Center’s peanut program.

Cason holds a doctorate from Texas A&M University in plant breeding, and he brings more than 20 years’ experience in breeding and developing new peanut cultivars. He supervised all phases of greenhouse- and field-level research at the Stephenville center during that time.

John Cason

Dr. John Cason

His research interests focus on development of peanut varieties with improved quality characteristics; identifying disease resistance and drought tolerance in wild peanut relatives and; developing introgression pathways to move genes into cultivated peanuts for development of varieties that are eventually used by growers in Texas and the Southwest.

“Cultivar development typically takes around seven years from first cross to release, so it’s a relatively slow process,” he said. “It can take up to 20 years to utilize wild species genetics to develop a new cultivar. We want to try to speed that up with the new technology that gives us the ability to collect and analyze large amounts of data. We’re just trying to shorten the process overall.”

One grant-funded program under his supervision will utilize aerial drones to collect field data, he said.

hand pollinating a peanut flower

One of Dr. Cason’s projects is breeding peanut varieties with improved drought tolerance. (Texas A&M AgriLife photo)

Cason also maintains and uses the wild species germplasm collection at the Stephenville center. Large amounts of the material were collected by his mentor, Dr. Charles Simpson, a professor emeritus at the Stephenville center, over many years in South America. It is one of the most extensive in the U.S. and includes germplasm from around the globe, he said.

“We’re following in Dr. Charles Simpson’s footsteps,” he said. “He’s still here full-time, and we’re grateful he has no plans to slow down.”

Cason’s responsibilities include wild species trait identification and introgression, cultivated population development, oversight of the statewide breeding trials, and coordination with the Texas Foundation Seed Service in initial seed increase of new and currently grown peanut varieties released from Texas A&M AgriLife. He will also collaborate with other scientists in the Texas A&M peanut program from across the state to develop new research and, most importantly, serve the growers of Texas.

“I will continue doing what I’ve been doing with expanded responsibilities, but it is exciting to see the peanut program flourishing once again,” he said. “It’s exciting that there is a commitment to the work we do and acknowledgement of the value of our research and how it benefits Texas and national producers and the consuming public.”

three men in field

Dr. John Cason helps train visiting scientists at the AgriLife Research and Extension Center in Stephenville. (Texas A&M AgriLife photo)

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