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By Clint Thompson
The Sunbelt Ag Expo may not have taken place this year amid COVID-19 concerns, but that doesn’t mean the Moultrie, Georgia site is completely desolate this year. Research trials on a variety of commodities continued this growing season. Now is the time that University of Georgia scientists and industry leaders are harvesting their crops.
“That’s been the one bright spot, the research farm hasn’t stopped. We’re still doing research on cotton, peanuts, corn, soybeans, grain sorghum,” said Chip Blalock, executive director of the Sunbelt Expo. “Harvest is going good. We just had a good 10-day window where we got a lot of peanuts picked and cotton picked and grain sorghum. We’re starting on our, what we normally call our show peanuts. We started digging them (last week). We had those timed to come off just right.”
According to sunbeltexpo.com, the Expo features a 100-acre exhibit area adjoining a 600-acre working research farm. Research is conducted on popular commodities like cotton, peanuts, corn, grain sorghum, bermudagrass forages and even variety trials with sunflowers.
Blalock admitted that the wet weather wreaked havoc in the summer and into the early fall. Some peanut producers are attempting to play catch-up with harvesting their crop.
“It’s been an interesting harvest season because it was so wet for so long and kind of put us behind. A lot of the peanut boys got behind. They’re having a lot of peanuts to pick at one time. Hopefully, we’re getting over that hump and getting into more timely harvests times as we move through the fall,” Blalock said.