Peanut Pointers: April 2025

Decrease Weed Competition With Multiple Control Methods

April is a good time to review your herbicide program. The most important weed control timing for optimizing the production of peanuts is the first nine weeks after planting. Peanut yields decrease as weed interference intervals increase during this period. Therefore, the use of preplant, preplant incorporated, preemergence and early and late post-emergence herbicides are critically important for minimizing weed competition during the early season.

When selecting herbicides, it is essential to rotate the mechanical mode of actions and avoid repeating the use of same one to slow down the development of herbicide-resistant weeds. The herbicide mode of action can be easily found on the label.

If you see weeds that survive following an application of an effective herbicide, please contact your county agent. They can confirm whether the weeds may be a herbicide-resistant biotype. Other weed control options include physical (hand pulling and hoeing), mechanical (plowing and cultivation), cultural (seeding rates, seeding dates, row patterns, crop rotation) and biological (use of insects). While chemical control is a very powerful tool in our toolbox, combinations with other tools will make the chemical control even more powerful.

Variety Options For Early Planting

The 2025 peanut planting season is right around the corner. I know many are looking to increase peanut acreage on their farms. It may seem like an easy decision to look at the low cotton prices and plan to shift cotton acres to peanut or corn. However, I encourage you to be mindful of the low percentage of peanuts with contract prices because of the potential huge increase of intended planted acres. There is no guarantee of a good peanut contract due to the increase in acreage. I would caution against compromising your rotation and future for little to no gain.

In fact, some producers have already stretched their rotations thin over the past couple of years. These shorter rotations have resulted in increased nematode pressure and a higher risk of disease.

We know, with increased nematodes, it’s obviously better to plant a nematode-resistant variety. This, and planting early, will also help lower nematode pressure due to getting peanuts out of the ground earlier in the fall and before nematodes can build up to a worse situation.

Even if you plan to plant earlier to mitigate the late pressure from nematodes, if you don’t use a resistant variety, spend the money and take advantage of the in-furrow nematode treatments available.

Last year was a light-pressure year for Tomato Spotted Wilt Virus. I really wish we could predict how much pressure we would have ahead of planting every year. We all know Georgia-12Y is rated as a five on the risk index scale, which makes it a good choice to plant early. Arnie is another new variety with the same rating as Georgia-12Y. I know seed is limited this year for Arnie, but it is becoming more available and that gives you another good choice for early season planting.

Many producers have been disappointed with the grades from Georgia-12Y and AU NPL 17 the past two years. However, the low grades resulted mainly from the weather. If you looked at Auburn’s variety testing website focusing on the past three-year average for yield and grade, Georgia-12Y and AU NPL 17 had the lowest loan value for the three-year average but also had the highest value-per-acre because of their yields. I don’t know about you, but I am planning on this growing season to be warm and wet, giving us an opportunity to make some peanuts. These conditions may increase disease pressure, and, with that being said, you don’t need to give up on those two varieties that offer some resistance until we have more seed available of the newer ones.

A List Of Important Crop Reminders

As we move through April, commitments to growing peanuts have been made for almost every field in question. I hope that farmers will be following a good crop rotation sequence in almost every field that is beneficial to peanuts. However, we know there are some fields with more risk than others when considering presence of diseases and nematodes. How can we minimize risk across the board? One way is to make sure other stresses are taken care of as well as possible.

Given peanut prices are more attractive than other crops in the rotation, we need to get as much out of the peanut crop as possible. For Virginia market types, I often share a bullet list at grower meetings reminding us of the most critical elements. Here is the list:

■ Apply nutrients based on soil tests and make sure soil pH is at least 5.8 across the entire field.

■ Avoid excessive magnesium and potassium, but apply these if the soil test calls for them.

■ Avoid fields with high levels of zinc, if possible. However, if you can get the soil pH up to 6.5, you can plant peanuts even if the zinc index approaches 1,000 (NCDA&CS reports.) Keep in mind that if you have areas of the field where pH is low and zinc is high (we often use an average for both when determining what to do), you might have some hot spots.

■ Establish good rotations with cotton, corn, sorghum or sweet potato and avoid soybeans and tobacco, if possible.

■ Plant as close to mid-May as possible (in North Carolina).

■ Establish five plants per foot of row (generally on 36-inch rows).

■ Plant in conventional tillage on beds unless you have figured out the keys to reduced tillage. Digging peanuts on beds reduces pod loss for Virginia market types.

■ Irrigate if possible. However, make sure salt levels are below thresholds, and do not put too much water, especially late in the season.

■ Inoculate using a spray in the seed furrow with Bradyrhizobia for biological nitrogen fixation on every acre. Add a peat-based inoculant to seed for insurance, especially on new ground and in fields with long rotations.

■ Apply gypsum prior to pegging but not too early in June. Use recommended rates. If you apply higher rates of gypsum in fields with lower pH, you could see a yield loss.

■ Apply boron and manganese. Boron needs to go on all acres while manganese is often needed only in fields with high pH. However, these are inexpensive, so routine applications are not discouraged.

■ Make sure you are getting enough of each micronutrient with the products you are buying. Some will require multiple applications to reach the threshold amount.

■ Apply prohexadione calcium if you anticipate excessive vine growth. We have plenty of vine growth with Bailey II in North Carolina. Make sure the second spray is needed. If you do not see new growth in the canopy, hold off on the second spray. We often reduce peanut yields when we force a second spray under dry conditions.

■ Dig pods and invert vines based on pod mesocarp color. You cannot get it perfect in every field, but we gain about 1% in yield for each day as we move toward optimum maturity (5%-7% less yield when we dig a week early).

■ Do not drive too fast when digging. Harvest in a timely manner (getting acreage and harvest capacity in line makes a big difference).

■ Control pests using IPM practices (too many details to go into here).

There’s a lot here to follow and many details within each recommendation. There is also a good bit of nuance in some cases. However, if you can put these practices in place, you will increase the likelihood of success in a major way.

There’s Still Time To Lay The Foundation For A Good Season

“Trying to minimize costly decisions” has been the foundation of peanut production meetings this winter. The one thing I know is that every decision is economically important, especially in the depressed financial situation we are currently in. The question growers need to ask is, “What does a specific decision cost up front and what are the potential implications of that decision on the final product, i.e. yield, quality, pest management?”

I know a lot of growers are considering cutting back on some inputs like tillage and fungicide programs because of the expense and time constraints. I am not against trying to save on inputs, but I want to caution growers to think about the situation for each field like rotation, variety selection, disease, weed and insect pressure, and decide if there are areas that can be cut back on versus strengthened.

As I mentioned in our production meetings, saving money upfront does not always equal a profit at the end of the season. We are early in the season, and growers can still help lay the foundation for a good year by taking soil samples, replenishing fertility where needed and reading over Peanut Rx to decide on variety choices.

Every choice you make from now to harvest will impact your profitability in 2025. Regarding varieties, the ones with the highest levels of resistance to Tomato Spotted Wilt Virus are Georgia-12Y, Tif NV-HG, Tif NV-HiO/L, Tif CB-7, Georgia-22MPR and Arnie. These are the varieties I would consider for early planting, but I would still use Thimet to help suppress TSWV.

Finally, I encourage growers to ask your local county agricultural agent for assistance and hopefully reduce the number of negative impacts this season.