Peanut growing hopes for Bay

Peter Morgan, who wants to put peanuts on trial in Hawke's Bay. Photo / Doug Laing

Anything Jimmy Carter could do Hawke's Bay could do better.

Well, possibly, according to Hastings man Peter Morgan who after a lifetime in the farming and production sector reckons Hawke's Bay could have a future growing peanuts - like the former US president.

Now, having already shelled-out for the growing stock, and the minimal implements for planting, he is looking for a partner to start trials which he reckons could turn the tables and see exports of peanuts to China.

He said if someone has the land for a trial, he has the nuts.

It was in China, where he has a shareholding in a tannery and where he has lived since 2004, that he got the idea when with a bit of Kiwi curiosity he popped the question about what was growing beside a plot of potatoes.

"What is this plant?" he asked. "Huasheng," someone said.They were peanuts.

"I grew up on a farm in South Canterbury, and we grew potatoes," said Mr Morgan, who has been home in Hastings for the last month before heading back to China.

The idea has bugged him for some years, but he says it seemed logical that if peanuts grow alongside potatoes, and potatoes grow in Hawke's Bay, then there would have to be a chance peanuts would grow as a viable commercial crop.

They have been grown in New Zealand for more than 25 years, their environment ranging from sandy plots to fish tubs in the laundry, but now Mr Morgan is aiming for something a bit bigger, having imported 8kg of especially shelled peanuts, now in storage.

Unlike other nut varieties, like walnut and chestnut, peanuts don't grow on trees.

They grow in earth, just beneath the surface, from a herbaceous plant that grows up to about 45cm above ground.

Strictly speaking, they are not nuts, and come from the pea family.

Peanut plants not too keen on frost, and need a growing-climate with at least four months of frost-free days.

"We are growing potatoes from one end of the country," said Mr Morgan, believes growing peanuts can be done cheaply, especially when compared with the end-user price for the salted variety in the supermarket aisle.

"They use peanuts in everything in China, and peanuts are eaten all over the World," he said. "I want to do a research trial. I think we can sell them back to China."