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Peanuts – Harvest Expands Into More States – AgFax

September 5, 2015September 5, 2015
By Owen Taylor and Larry Stalcup

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Here is this week’s issue of AgFax Peanuts, sponsored by Arysta LifeScience.

Owen Taylor, Editor (601-992-9488)
Larry Stalcup, Southwest Editor (806-356-6098)
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Sclerotinia and leaf spot are apparent in some Oklahoma and Texas fields. Pythium and rhizoctonia pod rot are turning up on a more limited basis.

Irrigation remains in full swing over the Southwest, where hot, dry weather has finally caught up to growers. Peanuts remain about two weeks late in some areas, so a warm September will be needed to finish things out. Weeds remain an issue in south Texas.

Some digging in Valencias could start within the week on the far west side of West Texas. See comments by Justin Tuggle.

Oklahoma will hold a peanut and cotton field day at the Fort Cobb research station on September 24, starting at 4 p.m. Topics will include peanut hull blasting and maturity assessment, along with cotton weed management. Field tours begin at 5:30 p.m. Call 405-743-7968 for more info.

Harvest continues to expand a bit in the Southeast, although the big push will begin after Labor Day. So far, digging has started in south Alabama, Florida, parts of Georgia and a little in South Carolina.

Worms remain active in tje Southeast and treatments continue. The lineup includes soybean loopers, velvetbean caterpillars and armyworms. Lesser cornstalk borers have taken a toll in some drought-stressed parts of the countryside, especially in South Carolina. Spider mites have become more apparent in the Southeast and some treatments have gone out in the last week.

White mold is still making itself known in the Southeast.

CROP REPORTS

Brandon Phillips, Phillips Ag Services, LLC, Fitzgerald, Georgia: “We’ve blasted some peanuts planted around April 14-15 and those will be dug in the next day or two (from 8/31). Very few fields were planted that early. We mostly started around May 4-5, so those are around 120 days. We’ll blast some of those late this week or early next week. What we’ve blasted so far are pointing to 140 to 150 days.

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“White mold is still an issue. We’ve gotten a little tighter on fungicides in the last two to three weeks and are now on a 10-day schedule. We had two inches of rain over the weekend (8/29-30) and are still being aggressive with 120-day peanuts and have backed up the interval to 7 days on some fields. The last time we had them that tight was three or four years ago. We’ve got situations where the weather and vine conditions are conducive to white mold, and we don’t want to lose part of the crop to above- or below-ground white mold.

“We’re through spraying worms in peanuts. Soybean loopers and velvetbean caterpillars have fallen by the wayside. Very few fields weren’t treated at least once for worms. Less than 1% were treated twice. A couple of growers stayed on a preventive Dimilin program and piggybacked it 2 or 3 times with fungicide, and they didn’t have to treat worms.”

Jaime Lopez, Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Agent, Frio County: “Peanuts are still being irrigated and we’re still seeing an increase in weed pressure. Some crews are in the peanuts, but the majority of the crop has a good canopy. Most of our peanuts are runners. We still hope to start digging about the first week of October. No disease pressure is evident.”

Michael Mulvaney, Cropping Systems Specialist, University of Florida, Western Panhandle: “We’re gearing up for harvest in this area. I’ve heard that a limited amount of digging has started but have not seen any, myself. White mold is starting to get more widespread. If we’re not getting much rain then we’re not moving fungicides down to where they need to be for control. At this point a better option might be to spray at night when peanut leaves are folded up, which should open more space to get the material down to the crown.”

Jack Royal, Royal’s Agricultural Consulting Co., Inc., Leary, Georgia: “We may dig some peanuts in 2 to 2.5 weeks (from 9/1). They’re only around 125 to 128 days right now. With a good fungicide program we can push them out to 145 to 146 days. When they’re ready depends on when they started pegging. The crop looks fairly good.

“We had to fight loopers. The challenge getting the spray far enough down in the plant. Ground rigs did much better than going with a plane. We also had to spray a few fields for velvetbean caterpillars. They were no problem to control. This has been a heavy white mold year but luckily we haven’t seen many hits with the fungicide program we’re on.”

Chuck Wilbur, Independent Crop Consultant, Wellington, Texas/Southeastern Panhandle/Southwestern Oklahoma: “We’re treating in places for pythium and rhizoctonia pod rot. Also, if you planted the crop early and have a canopy, you probably have some cercospora left spot. In general, though, the hot, dry weather is not an environment for big disease pressure.”

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Ron Smith, Alabama Extension Entomologist: “People are still dealing with or at least monitoring spider mites in the southeastern part of the state. In a lot of cases they’re on peanuts that are within two weeks of digging, but enough of a population has built that some people I’ve talked with are concerned, and I think they’ll treat. A significant number of velvetbean caterpillars are out there and they’ve been fairly abundant in some fields in the Wiregrass.”

Justin Ballew, Agronomy Agent, Dillon County, Clemson University, South Carolina: “Most peanuts look pretty decent. In other parts of the state lesser cornstalk borers developed, but we haven’t had any reports of them in the Pee Dee. We’re in pretty good shape for moisture right now. It rained off and on Monday (8/31) and we got up to 1.5 inches in places the week before. That really helped the peanuts.

“White mold has been light but we grow a lot of Virginias, which aren’t as susceptible to it as the runners are. Leaf spot is showing up in some fields now that we have high, constant humidity. So, growers need to stay on their fungicide schedule. I can find a little caterpillar damage but nothing that would need to be treated. I looked at some peanuts today (9/2) that are probably 10 to 12 days out, although I wouldn’t be surprised if a little digging doesn’t start in the area before then.”

Scott Monfort, University of Georgia Extension Peanut Specialist, Tifton, Georgia: “Harvest is pretty much running wide open in April peanuts. No yields yet but what I’ve seen looks good. Plenty of the late-April plantings are quickly getting ready. They’ll be coming out in a week or so (from 9/4) and the early-May peanuts won’t be far behind.

“This doesn’t look like a bumper crop by any means but dryland peanuts range from fair to good and irrigated fields look good, too. I haven’t seen any horrible situations yet. Some areas didn’t get as much rain as others, of course. The forecast calls for a good chance of rain over the weekend (9/5-6), and we’re hoping enough falls to help us get some dryland fields up.

“Disease is running rampant in spots and we still have some worm situations. Overall, though, it’s nothing terrible or widespread, and we can’t complain too much. The chance of rain prodded some growers into starting harvest ahead of the Labor Day weekend. Their peanuts were far enough along that they couldn’t risk another rain and the chance that some sprouting would start.”

Justin Tuggle, CropDocs.Com, Gaines, Yoakum, Terry and Dawson Counties, Texas: “Our Valencias are early. Apparently, we’ve had a perfect summer. We got enough heat during the day without anything excessive. During one 7- or 8-day stretch the highs were 100 to 102, but otherwise it was mostly 94 to 95. The nighttime lows were a bit warmer than usual, I think. With that pattern, we piled up plenty of heat units.

“Even though we planted a little later than usual, we’ll be on the front end of digging next week. The maturity is there. This puts us two weeks ahead of what we would consider normal. Those periodic rains were well timed for supplementing irrigation. Crop potential looks very promising, too. This almost defies logic.

“With the rain, we had diseases, and I sprayed for southern blight more than I ever had. More weeds, too. All that indicates we had consistent rain, and nobody is complaining about that.

Management Tip from Arysta LifeScience:

Prolonged White Mold Challenge

White mold always poses challenges for peanut growers, buat it has been a prolonged issue for some growers this season. To gain the upper hand on white mold, experts at the University of Georgia suggest you keep in mind:

No program will stop all initial, random incidence of white mold. The key to a successful fungicide program is to prevent the disease from spreading from that plant to other plants within and down the row.
Spraying the peanut field at night or in the darkness of early morning when the leaves are folded is a great way to get the fungicide where it needs to be (the crown of the plant).
If you are not satisfied, consider using a more aggressive fungicide.
Consider extending the white mold control schedule. Even if a grower has completed a “traditional” white mold program, it may be necessary to extend the program.
Use anticipated rain events and irrigation to move the fungicide to the limbs and to the crown of the plant.

“It looks like the Spanish types will be early, as well, based on preliminary scraping. Typically, we don’t get into those until the first week of October, but they won’t stay that long this year. In places, they’re 35% to 45% brown-black on Tamnut 06. With our Virginia types, Gregory set pods really early this year and probably did 85% of that within a two-week period. Typically, those start coming out in early October but they also are two weeks ahead, so we probably will dig the first of those in September. In the runners, I’m finding a few that are brown to black.”

Kris Balkcom, Research Associate, Wiregrass Research and Extension Center, Headland, Alabama: “Harvest is underway and some of those peanuts look pretty good. A nice rain developed last weekend (8/29-30), which helped in places. It mainly fell more to the east of Headland, although those areas to the west could have really used it. Some of those fields look kind of white from a distance.

“Worms seem to have flared up again. A lot of foliage feeders are out there now and people are spraying. The complex still includes loopers, velvetbean caterpillars and armyworms, among others. A couple of folks told me this week that they have spider mites, too.

“Digging right now is mostly in fields here and there east of Headland. Mainly, these are cases where peanuts made pretty good taproot crops and don’t have anything other than that. It will be another week or so before harvest really gets going on a wider basis.”

Todd Baughman, Oklahoma State University Institute for Agricultural Biosciences, Program Support Leader, Peanuts, Ardmore: “It remains a light year for disease, although sclerotinia and leaf spot are showing up in some fields. My biggest concern is finishing out the crop. Most of our peanuts are still two weeks or more later than normal. We’ve been hot and dry the last couple of weeks. The heat is probably helping us, but it’s putting a demand on irrigation capacity for the first time this summer. If it turns cooler, we need to keep an eye out for disease. We don’t want to lose anything to leaf spot or pod rot.”

Jay Chapin, Interim Extension Peanut Specialist, Clemson University, South Carolina: “Very little digging has started (as of 9/5) but we’ll see a bit more beginning next week. We still have issues with spider mites, velvetbean caterpillars and a few other worms. This dry weather remains in places and we’re finding a lot of lesser cornstalk borer activity.”