Some of my favorite memes are those that fit “You had one job.” It’s often a picture – school spelled incorrectly, a sign posted upside down or something like hamburger buns in the hotdog bun bag.
Let’s face it, everyone messes up on the job at times. Some days you might feel like nothing is going your way. But what if your job was to do everything wrong intentionally? To choose the bad option every time or make horrible decisions constantly? That’s a little bit of what research plant pathologists do. It’s not an attempt to make peanuts fail but instead to see what survives despite everything they throw at the crop.
As University of Georgia research plant pathologist Albert Culbreath explains, “I do everything wrong in terms of managing tomato spotted wilt. I plant early in a single-row pattern. I use a minimal seeding rate and conventional tillage. The goal is to put peanuts under as much pressure from TSWV as possible. Anything that holds up here should be able to hold up under pressure nearly anywhere.”
Fellow UGA research plant pathologist Tim Brenneman does the same with his research plots. The cover photo shows a nematode trial where that pest has been encouraged to flourish. Some treatments are clearly no match for the overwhelming number of microscopic parasites. What does stand out, which you can read more about on page 12, is the variety TifNV-High O/L that is unaffected by the root-knot nematodes.
Through encouraging disease pressure and by stacking the numbers against peanut varieties or treatments, our research pathologists identify the best options for your farm. When you work to provide the crop what it needs and make the best decisions, the varieties and treatments honed through years of research should bring the yield and quality you need.
