2013 Georgia Peanut Harvest Is Underway

Well, these days, Georgia peanut producers are very busy gathering their crops. Recently the Monitor's Mark Wildman visited with one Baker County peanut grower who says he's pleased with the outcome of a crop that for a while there had a pretty grim outlook. At the start of the 2013 peanut growing season, Tim Burch had to wonder if he would ever see a clear blue sky and a nice dry day to harvest. This farm, like many around the peanut growing areas, were hit hard with heavy rain that seemed like they would never stop. We've been quite concerned of how it would adversely impact the crop, but the peanuts seem to have survived it well. All of mine that have drained well have had no bad effects from the rain. We've got a good crop. One upside to a lot of rain is that the irrigation pivots did not have to run as much, and that saves farmers on the cost of growing the crop. I've got less inputs in my peanut crop. As it turned out on my cotton crop, I probably was offset with the savings from lack of having to irrigate, having to add more fertilizer, but on peanuts we didn't, so the bottom line should be a little better this year on my peanut crop because I don't have hardly any irrigation bills on it. I had to irrigate this field to dig it, and I probably watered it one time in June. That's probably the only irrigation it's had this year. It takes a lot of good farming management practices to get a crop to harvest, but all in the industry can also give a tip of the hat to good research. This year we've got, my brother and I farm together. We have 360 acres of peanuts, and 320 of them are 06Gs, and the others are TIFGARD. TIFGARD has a place where you have high nematode problems, or where any of my problem soils where I have more diseases, I still use that variety. We harvested it yesterday, and it did well where I placed it, better than the 06s would have, but 06 is our predominant variety. Mr. Birch is a Georgia Peanut Commission board member, and the Peanut Commission supports many peanut research projects. Our varieties are strong varieties that are disease resistant and are high yielders, and naturally we've got to keep looking forward to find that next variety. They always have played out after some time, or something better has come along, so research is important. We can't just sit and depend on this variety to cure us ten more years. Farmers have had great yields the last couple of years, and even though the crop got off to a bad start, the yields this year look pretty good. The high yield in producers may be off a little bit, but the moderate to low producer, his yields will be up this year. And I always fall in that latter category, so I hope mine are up just a little bit. My grades have actually been up a little bit this year, they're in the high 70s, so I'm real pleased. I believe my low grade this year has been a 76, so that's unusual also. As the weather gets cooler and the leaves change colors, peanut farmers will tell you there is no place they would rather be than in a dusty peanut field gathering their crop. It's a beautiful day and it's nice to be doing what you want to do. Reporting from Baker County, I'm Mark Wildman for the Georgia Farm Monitor.