By Clint Thompson
Georgia peanut harvests will soon take place across Georgia. Then they will stop; and then start up again. A lull during harvest time is expected this year because of the weather conditions that growers experienced last spring, according to Scott Monfort, University of Georgia Extension peanut agronomist
“We planted one-third of this crop from April to May, about (May) 5th or 6th. And that’s when we started getting those rains. I think for two weeks we didn’t plant much; maybe three weeks in some places,” Monfort said. “If you get to Randolph and Calhoun County, some of those folks didn’t plant for quite a while. It depends on how much rain you had and that kind of thing. We’re going to get started, and we’re going to have a lull and then you’re going to get started again. How long will that be? We don’t know yet. It may just be a week or two.”
Monfort talked about what growers should be mindful of during these last few weeks of production. He highlighted his main concerns moving forward.
“For peanuts, for certain, it’s holding the leaves on this crop. Right now, we’ve got leaf spot showing up. We’ve got a long way to go in some of this,” Monfort said. “If (growers) backed off on some of the better fungicides, we need to rethink that situation because if not, we’re going to dig early, which means that we’re going to lose some yield and grade. I don’t want anybody to do that. We already had a field or two that we had to go in early because of leaf spot. We don’t want that to be widespread because they need to make everything they can right there.”