By Clint Thompson
Georgia peanut producers are nearing the time of year when digging peanuts will become a regular practice, followed by harvesting of their crop. But some peanut plants still have some time left to mature, which means disease management should remain a priority.
Bob Kemerait, University of Georgia (UGA) Extension plant pathologist, discussed the steps growers should be taking while speaking at the recent UGA Cotton and Peanut Field Day in Tifton, Georgia.
“When you get this close to harvest, growers start to think about harvest and less about disease and pest management. I understand that, but I think they need to be careful, especially with the peanut crop,” Kemerait said.
“So I would tell any grower who’s got a month to go before anticipated digging, there’s still time out where you might need to use another fungicide application. If you’re within three weeks of anticipated digging, and this is assuming we don’t get hurricanes to delay us, with three weeks, if you don’t have much leaf spot out there and your white mold looks good, you’re done.
“But if you get to three weeks and still got white mold active and you’ve got leaf spot active and you’re trying to hold it altogether, then within two weeks, you’re still making a fungicide application. Yes, we’re getting close to harvest, but we still have opportunity to protect that crop. The most important thing to do is see how much disease you’ve got in the field as well.
“Once you reach 25% defoliation, no fungicide is really going to slow that down. Once you get to 60% defoliation and I hope none of those listening do get that far, but once you get there, you need to be thinking about not, what your maturity digging date but what is your actual digging date. At 60% defoliation, you’re likely to start losing yield to weakened pegs.”