pnut pnut Peanut Science 0095-3679 0095-3679 American Peanut Research and Education Society 10.3146/i0095-3679-10-2-14 Articles Specimen Preparation Techniques for Scanning Electron Microscopy of Developing Peanut Pegs1 H. E. Pattee 2, S. C. Mohapatra 3, and E. K. Agnello 3 Research Chemist, USDA, ARS, SR, North Carolina State University, P. O. Box 5906, Raleigh, NC 27650 Senior Researcher and Research Technician, respectively, Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27650

1Paper Number 8979 of the Journal Series of the North Carolina Agricultural Research Service, Raleigh, NC 27650. Use of trade names of specific materials does not constitute endorsement by the United States Department of Agriculture or the North Carolina Agricultural Research Service to the exclusion of others which also may be available.

4SEM and LM denote scanning electron microscope and light microscope, respectively. Depending upon usage in the sentence, the observations may also refer to the two types of microscopy, micrographs, or microscopic techniques.

 7 1983 10 2 93 97 14 11 1983 American Peanut Research and Education Society 1983 American Peanut Research and Education Society Abstract

This study evaluated various specimen preparation techniques for light microscopy (LM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Main conclusions from this study were:

(i) Critical point drying (CPD) was preferred over freeze drying for SEM of whole or large pieces of specimens. However, CPD did not offer any additional advantage over air drying for SEM of thin (14 μm) microtomed sections of paraffin embedded specimens.

(ii) Formaldehyde-acetic acid-alcohol (FAA) was found to be satisfactory as a general purpose fixative for LM and low magnification SEM. However, for magnifications higher than X500, where subcellular details become the subject of investigation, glutaraldehyde (GA) was found to be preferable over FAA.

(iii) Certain artifacts appeared to be related to developmental stages of the peanut fruit.

 Key Words Scanning electron microscopy; , light microscopy; , peanut fruit; , maturation; , development