
 
 A new peanut, developed by the USDA and Oklahoma State University, could be healthier, have a longer shelf life, and be more resistant to disease in the field. How? It's all because of oleic acid. 
 
 The USDA, it seems, is working overtime on the peanut these days. Just last month it boasted an allergen-free peanut that may allow those unfortunate reactive souls to enjoy this delicious legume as the rest of us do. And now, by funding a project from Oklahoma State University, the USDA recently released a new peanut variety that looks to be an improvement over existing peanut varieties in a whole bunch of important ways. 
 
 The new peanut, called OLé (and god help you if you forget that accent or de-capitalize it) is a variety of Spanish peanut that’s engineered to have a few key new attributes. Spanish peanuts are most easily visually identified due to their papery red skins, but there are other differences as well. They tend to be smaller, and they also have a much higher oil content, which gives them a nuttier, richer flavor. 
 
 The OLé peanuts are what’s known as a high-oleic peanut, meaning that they have a boosted amount of oleic acid, a fatty acid that’s also present in olive oil, compared with other types of fatty acids. That higher level of oleic acid is useful: It increases shelf life dramatically, and it’s been linked with various health benefits. (Oleic acid is why olive oil is sometimes referred to as a “good fat.”) 
 
 From our partners at VICE 
 
 High-oleic peanuts in general aren’t new; they’ve been around for a good few years, making their commercial introduction in 1995, albeit in extremely small quantities. (They also don’t seem to make a difference in terms of allergens, unfortunately.) But the OLé variety is of interest to us for two reasons: First, the OLé peanut is also engineered to be resistant to diseases like pod rot and sclerotinia blight, which can either devastate peanut fields or force farmers to use copious amounts of possibly dangerous fungicides. The other reason is more market-driven: High-oleic Spanish peanuts were first created in 2002 with a variety called Olin, but the new OLé peanut is both more resistant to disease and produces a significantly higher amount of peanuts per acre. 
 
 Spanish style peanuts are the peanut of choice for high-quality peanut butter, a product that’s found in 91 percent of U.S. households and garners about $1.18 billion per year in this country. All that together makes this peanut the first high-oleic variety you’re likely to see on your store shelves. 
 
 You can read more about the new peanut here. ||||| A New Spanish Peanut Variety for Consumers, Growers 
 
 By Sharon Durham 
 
 February 24, 2015 
 
 A new Spanish peanut variety that packs high levels of healthful oleic acid has been released by U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientists and university cooperators. The new variety, called OLé, could provide producers and consumers with a peanut that has disease resistance, longer shelf life and heart-healthy qualities. 
 
 Agricultural Research Service (ARS) biologist Kelly Chamberlin of the Wheat, Peanut, and Other Field Crops Research Unit in Stillwater, Oklahoma, and cooperators at Oklahoma State University developed OLé, which will be available for commercial production in 2015. 
 
 ARS is USDA’s chief intramural scientific research agency. 
 
 Oleic acid is a beneficial monounsaturated fatty acid, and the high oleic acid levels in the peanut make its oil a heart-healthy one for consumers. Growers like the new variety because of its disease resistance and potential for high yield and grade. 
 
 According to Chamberlin, this is an important variety that will have a lot of impact on the peanut industry as a whole. Plus OLé has resistance to Sclerotinia blight, a fungal disease that can cause yield loss and is a particular problem for peanut growers in Oklahoma, Texas and the Virginia-North Carolina region. Depending upon severity of field infestation, yield losses due to such soilborne diseases may be as high as 50 percent. 
 
 Cultivated peanut is an economically important crop throughout the world. Peanut is susceptible to many pathogens, with most damage being caused by fungi. Soilborne fungi cause diseases that adversely affect peanut health and productivity throughout the growing areas of the United States. 
 
 Sustainable peanut production in the southwestern United States demands that cultivars grown there possess certain characteristics, including a high oleic/linoleic acid ratio, which increases peanut product shelf life, and resistance to multiple diseases, according to Chamberlin. In tests at three locations in Oklahoma, Chamberlin and her colleagues found that growing OLé reduced Sclerotinia blight infestation. This can save growers approximately $100 per acre in fungicide costs for Sclerotinia blight alone. The variety also has good pod rot resistance. 
 
 The first high-oleic Spanish peanut cultivar released, called OLin, was the result of collaborative efforts between Texas AgriLife Research, ARS, and Oklahoma State University. It was released in 2002. OLé produces higher peanut yields than OLin. 
 
 The OLé variety is now being grown for foundation seed before being made available commercially. ||||| July 16, 2015 
 
 Peanuts are big – big business that is. According to the National Peanut Board, Americans spend about $800 million a year on peanut butter, and peanuts contribute more than $4 billion a year to the US economy. 
 
 A new variety of peanut, called OLé, has recently been released by a team of researchers at the United States Department of Agriculture – Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS) and their colleagues at Oklahoma State University. 
 
 OLé peanuts have longer shelf lives and increased disease resistance compared to other peanut varieties, and pack high amounts of a heart-healthy fatty acid called oleic acid. 
 
 Kelly Chamberlin, a Research Biologist in the Wheat, Peanut and Other Field Crops Research Unit at the USDA-ARS and part of the team that developed the OLé peanut, anticipates this new variety will greatly benefit consumers, farmers and the peanut industry. 
 
 While high-oleic peanuts have been in cultivation for a number of years, recently seed stock contamination and other logistical issues had led to a shortage of high-oleic peanuts of the Spanish market-type. Spanish peanuts have a high oil content, which gives them a characteristic “nutty” flavor when roasted, and are used primarily to make peanut candy, salted peanuts and peanut butter. 
 
 “The peanut industry [found itself] in urgent need of a replacement high-oleic Spanish cultivar with acceptable seed size, yield and disease resistance package” says Chamberlin. The OLé peanut was developed to meet this pressing need. 
 
 OLé peanuts contain large amounts of oleic acid, which is a heart-healthy monounsaturated fatty acid. Consumption of oleic acid has been linked to several health benefits, including better heart health, decreases in blood pressure, and alleviation of some symptoms of type 2 diabetes. 
 
 The relatively high amounts of oleic acid, compared to another fatty acid called linoleic acid, in OLé peanuts increases their shelf life tremendously. Unsaturated fatty acids, like oleic and linoleic acid, contain one or more double bonds between carbon atoms. Fats can go rancid when these double bonds break down. Fewer double bonds in a fatty acid means a greater shelf life. Oleic acid has fewer double bonds compared to linoleic acid. 
 
 “Basically what we are doing is changing the chemistry of the seed so the peanuts do not go rancid as rapidly,” says Chamberlin, “and that increases the shelf life of the peanut product by up to 10 times.” 
 
 The longer shelf life, health benefits and “nuttier” flavor of OLé peanuts make them very attractive to the peanut industry. Farmers can benefit from this interest. 
 
 “There is a big demand [from industry] for high-oleic peanuts and there is a premium paid at the buying point for them,” says Chamberlin. “That makes a big difference for the farmers and to their overall profits.” 
 
 The OLé variety also helps farmers and the environment by being significantly more resistant to diseases. Sclerotinia blight and pod rot are fungal, soil-borne diseases that can devastate peanut fields. 
 
 Farmers often spend significant amounts of money and time applying fungicides to try to protect peanut crops. “But growing a disease resistance variety, like the OLé, could save farmers up to $150/acre because they wouldn't have to use any chemicals” says Chamberlin, “and that's big savings.” 
 
 In fact, during field tests OLé plants were three times as resistant to Sclerotinia blight and about seven times as resistant to pod rot when compared to OLin, an older variety of Spanish peanut. 
 
 Although OLé peanuts have increased disease resistance, Chamberlin labels its yield per hectare as “acceptable.” She and her research team are now working on varieties that have higher yields, by at least a thousand pounds per acre. “We are always trying to improve on every characteristic,” says Chamberlin. 
 
 Read more about the characteristics of OLé peanuts in the Journal of Plant Registration. ||||| 
 
 doi: 10.3198/jpr2014.10.0072crc 
 
 Abstract 
 
 OLé (Reg. No. CV-128, PI 674164) peanut (experimental designation ARSOK-S140-1OL) is a high-oleic spanish-type (Arachis hypogaea L. subsp. fastigiata var. vulgaris) that was cooperatively released by the USDA–ARS and the Oklahoma Agricultural Experiment Station in 2014. OLé is the product of the cross ‘Tamspan 90’ × F435. The male parent, F435, is the original donor of the high-oleic genes. Pedigree methodology was used in screening segregating populations. The advanced breeding line ARSOK-S140-1OL was identified due to its enhanced resistance to Sclerotinia blight (causal agent Sclerotinia minor Jagger) and pod rot (causal agents Pythium myriothylum and/or Rhizoctonia solani). In 6 yr of advanced breeding line performance trials across three locations in Oklahoma, OLé yielded an average of 4048 kg ha−1 and had less incidence of Sclerotinia blight in 2009 to 2011 and 2013 and less pod rot in 2009 and 2010 (P < 0.05) compared with OLin. Overall, field performance data indicate that production of OLé instead of OLin could save producers $150 to $400 ha−1 annually in disease management input costs. 
 
 Please view the pdf by using the Full Text (PDF) link under 'View' to the left. 
 
 Copyright © 2015. . Copyright © by the Crop Science Society of America, Inc.
– If you've been puzzling over ways to get more oleic acid into your body, the USDA has just come through. In a joint venture with Oklahoma State University, the agency has released a brand-new peanut that's said to boast a richer flavor, health benefits, and resistance to crop disease, Modern Farmer reports. The new legume, a type of Spanish peanut, is called OLé and is the result of a sophisticated "pedigree methodology" that tapped into an "advanced breeding line" to create a peanut that would be more resistant to Sclerotinia blight and pod rot. The diseases can devastate peanut crops unless farmers resort to using fungicides, so from a financial standpoint, OLé could be a game changer; diseases like that in a peanut field's soil can wipe out up to half the crop, per a USDA press release. "Growing a [disease-resistant] variety like the OLé could save farmers up to $150 [per] acre because they wouldn't have to use any chemicals, and that's big savings," a USDA research biologist tells the Crop Science Society of America. The new peanut is also good news from the consumer perspective: It's loaded with oleic acid—the same fatty acid found in olive oil—which doesn't turn rancid as quickly as the linoleic acid also found in peanuts, meaning a longer shelf life for peanut-based products. And oleic acid is a monounsaturated fatty acid (one of the so-called "good" fats"), linked to lower blood pressure, better heart health, and decreased symptoms in diabetes patients, per the CSSA. The peanut's high oil content also lends it a nuttier flavor; Modern Farmer notes Spanish-style nuts are generally used to make "high-quality" peanut butter. (In an extremely rare case, a boy developed a peanut allergy in an odd way.)