Dialing in both the ground and conveyor speed will help minimize lost pods. • By Amanda Huber • As many Extension specialists and agents will tell you, more revenue can be made or lost during digging than any other aspect of peanut production from seedbed preparation to combining. That’s why digger setup and operation, along with proper timing, is a critical ... Read More »
1. Field Selection / Rotation: Peanuts require well-drained land and do best on soils with a sandy surface. Avoid fields with recent soybean history as best you can and eliminate from future rotation. Sustainable production requires a minimum of two years, three are better, of cotton or corn, not legumes, in between peanut crops. 2. Soil test: P and K ... Read More »
A peanut broker recently told farmers that the price of peanut kernels was indicating to shellers that we will need fewer peanuts in 2019 than was handled in 2018. This is because of weak domestic demand and uncertainty with respect to exports. That could change, but thus far, the market is urging a cutback. That about sums up the market ... Read More »
Dry, wet, damaged and delayed – how many different weather events can happen in one season? Mark Twain once said, “In the Spring, I have counted 136 different kinds of weather inside of 24 hours.” Multiply that by how many days from planting to harvest across the peanut belt, and that’s about how many different weather situations producers had to ... Read More »
Rain every few days, and eventually snow, hinder producers’ ability to gather this crop. Arkansas farmers planted more than 20,000 acres of peanuts for the third straight year, but this year were enduring a harvest that dragged into December. “Arkansas peanut farmers planted a little over 25,000 acres, which is the third consecutive year of over 20,000 acres for the ... Read More »
Never before have two hurricanes caused such destruction and disruption in the peanut industry. • By Amanda Huber • Florence was a powerful storm that weakened before making landfall as a Category 1 hurricane. Michael continued to grow in strength even a little while after landfall. Florence dumped buckets of rain and freshwater flooding was the primary impact. Michael’s 155 mile ... Read More »
Being the editor of The Peanut Grower magazine is more than a job for me. In fact, this year marks 20 years. At the American Research and Education Society Meeting in July, I had an occasion to count up all my years in the peanut industry, which I figure to be close to 25. In other words, I’ve been around ... Read More »
2018 Farm Bill The 2014 Farm Bill expired on Sept. 30, 2018. Congressional leaders now face the task of finding a compromise that can be approved by both chambers in a lame-duck session after the mid-term election. President Trump must sign the bill by the end of the calendar year. Rep. Mike Conaway (R-TX) says the impasse is bigger than ... Read More »
What are the factors affecting final sprays and digging decisions? The decision of whether to spray or not or when to start digging is not always an easy one. The decision is made more difficult when a storm or bad weather is predicted. Last year’s active hurricane season made end-of-season planning and execution tricky. Based on early season conditions and ... Read More »
Properly inverted plants will form a uniform, fluffy, well-aerated windrow with few pods touching the soil. When to dig peanuts is one of the most important decisions growers make each year. The hull-scrape method of determining peanut maturity is an accurate way of judging when to harvest. County Extension agents routinely run crop maturity checks using the peanut profile board ... Read More »
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