EVALUATION OF BLANCHING QUALITY IN GROUNDNUT (ARACHIS-HYPOGAEA L)

Thirty five Spanish and forty six Virginia groundnut genotypes, grown in the 1992 rainy season and the 1992/93 post-rainy season at the ICRI SAT Asia Center, were evaluated for their blanching quality. The stand ardized conditions of preheating the seed samples at 200 degrees C for 8 min, followed by blanching for 2 min at 15 psi air pressure, gave s atisfactory results. There was a large variation in total blanchabilit y within Spanish (10.8-90.60%) and Virginia (8.6-86.7%) genotypes. Res ults indicated that high total blanchability in genotypes were contrib uted largely by the blanched spilt seeds. Effects of growing seasons o n various blanching quality parameters were more pronounced in the Vir ginia genotypes than in the Spanish genotypes.