Mission:
The National Peanut Research Laboratory consists of several research thrusts including environmental research, systems research, flavor/quality research, peanut grading research, storage research and mycotoxin research with particular emphasis on the aflatoxins. The Laboratory conducts research toward improving quality, cleaning, storing and marketing of peanuts. Research is oriented toward solving the major problems confronting the peanut producer, handler, manufacturer, and the consumer. Considerable effort is being directed toward quality problems such as prevention and removal of aflatoxins and foreign material, and factors responsible for off-flavor in peanuts. The Laboratory is also intricately involved in studies toward developing new and improved production marketing systems to reduce unit cost, enhance domestic and foreign use of peanuts and provide a safe, high quality product to the consumer. Additional effort is expended on development and use of integrated peanut modeling systems that will provide the Cooperative Extension Service and other users of research with information for making production and marketing decisions. The most recent research objective is development of an automated objective grading system for peanuts.