Peanut establishment and production potential associated with planting seed with splits

Plain Language Summary

Peanut seed contains a single embryo. When a bag of peanut seed is found to contain splits, it can raise questions about the cost‐effectiveness of planting that seed. To address these concerns, experiments were conducted over 2 years to evaluate the agronomic effects associated with planting peanut seed with varying proportions of splits and to identify a potential threshold below which agronomic effects are functionally inconsequential. Stands were not reduced when planted peanut seed contained ≤24% splits. Canopy coverage declined when planted seed contained ≥24% splits. Compared with planting without splits, pod yield was not decreased when the planted seed contained ≤12% splits. These results support the viability of planting peanut seed when splits comprise ≤12% of the planted seed and do not warrant adjusting seeding rates in the presence of splits within this range (i.e., 0%–12%).