PEANUT DISEASES 



291 



Organisms and factors involved. As discussed previously, a fungus 

 flora develops in the peanut fruit in the soil (48, 161) and viable fungi 

 are associated with peanut fruits and seeds after curing (48, 114, 162) and 

 storage (44). These are primarily saprophytic fungi (44, 48, 114, 162) 

 which may, under favorable conditions, produce rot or other seed damage. 



The activity of fungi will be conditioned or limited by a number of 

 factors. The most important of these factors appears to be temperature, 

 moisture and time. Thus, rots, discolorations and fungus-produced ran- 

 cidity and flavor changes which occur in storage will be influenced by 



these same factors. Woodroof et al. (170) studied moisture content in 

 relation to fungus development in stored peanuts. Their results indicate 

 that unshelled, untreated, raw peanuts do not become evidently molded 

 when stored at 6 per cent moisture or below, become slightly molded 

 when stored at 6.5 to 7.5 percent moisture, and become pronouncedly 

 molded at 10 percent moisture or above. For shelled peanuts the moisture 

 content at which fungus development becomes evident and pronounced is 

 slightly higher. 



In this same study (170) the effect of relative humidity of the 

 storage atmosphere plus time of storage on fungus development were 

 tested. At 80 percent relative humidity fungus development was evident 

 at 120 to 180 days and pronounced after 240 days. At 65 percent 



