By Clint Thompson
Excessive rains from the previous two weekends soaked South Georgia and drenched peanut fields where the crop is nearing harvest.
It was not an ideal scenario for the state’s crop, but it could have been a lot worse, says Scott Monfort, University of Georgia Extension peanut agronomist.
“We are blessed that it was not any worse than it was, because even though it stayed in for a day, all day Friday going into the Saturday night, it was scheduled to be here all day Saturday too, and it was not,” Monfort said. “We’ve got a good dry week here that’s going to help out.”
Word of Caution
Monfort cautions producers against returning to the field too quickly, as they are likely eager to return as quickly as possible.
“I don’t want to try to get in the field too quickly. I know we’ve got some problems,” Monfort said. “We’re going to have some peanuts that needed to be out of the ground. They’re going to have some sprouts type of thing. But we’ve got some that we’re starting to get a little bit more peg strength issues because of the leaf spot and just being overmature in some areas. I think in those situations, we don’t want to jump in there too quickly with too wet of soils because we’ll end up pulling more off than what we were trying to save.
“I think for the most part most of our growers, in all reality, should be where they can at least get in sometime in the near future and try to try to get them fluffed, go back and have a plow or whatever to go back under them. If we can get that, we’d be in good shape. We just have to watch and see where we’re at with that but try not to get in the field too soon. I mean, a lot of them are going to want to run under them if they can. We just don’t want to get in there too wet and be where we’re going to make ruts, trying to just fluff them, make sure that that field is dry enough to do that all right.”