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By Clint Thompson
Georgia peanut producers are on the cusp of starting this year’s harvests. According to Scott Monfort, University of Georgia Extension peanut agronomist, the crop has good potential, considering the weather challenges growers have faced from start to finish.
“I think we’ve got a good, decent crop. The quality should be good. The yield should be all right. We’re going to suffer a little bit because of this dry weather. But the irrigated crop should be okay if they keep up with the irrigation,” Monfort said. “We’re within two weeks of the first people digging and those were early-April to mid-April planted peanuts.”
While harvests should commence in early September, there will be a break during the season because of the lull during planting season. A wet month of May sidelined many growers, and a substantial amount of peanuts were delayed in getting in the ground.
“There’s going to be a little bit of a lull. We’ve got about 30% of the crop that’s early planted before that rain started. We stopped for three weeks, and then we started back and that start-back was shaky there for a while,” Monfort said. “We’re also going to have a one week, maybe two-week lull. East Georgia is probably going to be more in tune to be on time. When I say east Georgia, I’m talking about Jefferson down to around Bulloch. Some of those didn’t get all of that rain.”