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OVERVIEW

Ample moisture is pushing weed growth and raises concerns about diseases. See comments from David Wright and John Beasley, among others, in Crop Reports.

The Southwest’s peanut acreage will be down significantly, says Justin Tuggle. See his comments in Crop Reports.

Argentina’s peanut trade group has established a pesticide residue testing program to comply with European Union certification requirements. See the report posted in our Sunbelt Ag News section at agfax.com.

Thrips are building in Virginia peanuts. See comments by Ames Herbert.

PEANUTFAX CROP REPORTS, JUNE 11, 2009

Leonard Kuykendall, Regional Extension Agent, East-Central Alabama: "Some growers were able to start planting peanuts a couple of weeks ago, but a lot just went in the ground in the last week or so. On the earliest, farmers are starting to come back with cracking sprays. The weather continues to be the main factor. With all the rain in the last 3 weeks we’ve only had 3- to 4-day stretches when we could be in the field, and that delayed everything."

Mike Howell, Extension Area Agronomist, Gulfport, Miss.: "Peanuts in south Mississippi look really good. A lot of growers are in the weed-control mode. A few guys are starting on their fungicide programs. Overall, our crop ranges from peanuts planted in mid April to some still in the sack. Several growers in north Mississippi have decided it’s too late for their area and quit planting. A few are still pushing ahead, though. We’ll be down in peanut acreage, overall, just because of the wet weather. A lot of peanuts planted earlier simply rotted in the field and never had a chance to emerge."

David L. Wright, Florida Extension Agronomist, Quincy, Fla.: "More delays trying to get peanuts planted – this is very frustrating. In some cases, growers applied burndown materials but 2 weeks later still weren’t able to plant, and fields were solid green with weeds again because there’s so much moisture. We’re planting peanuts so late, in general, that we really only have about a 10-day ideal planting window in May. This year, 7 of those days were lost to rain and wet conditions. At this point I’m advising growers to go with some of the shorter-season varieties and to finish planting this week, if possible."

Mark Mitchell, Mitchell Ag Consulting, Inc., Bainbridge, Ga.: "We’re 95% finished with peanut planting (6/8) and are crack spraying some. My oldest, other than boilers, are 40 to 42 days old. They’re blooming real good and beginning to peg right around the tap root. We’re finding thrips but haven’t had to spray any. Very few lesser cornstalk borers are turning up. We’re starting to see a few foliage feeders, but nothing over 1 per 3 row feet. They’re probably corn earworms since we have them in corn, and I haven’t seen any tobacco budworm moths yet. The worms are fairly small. I’ve seen a little tomato spotted wilt virus on just isolated plants, nothing above a very low level, so far."

Jay Chapin, Extension Specialist-Peanuts, Blackville, S.C.: "For the most part, we’re planted. A good many of them went in later than we’d like, and some didn’t get planted at all. A limited number of acres will go behind small grain. Valor is holding out pretty well, and some Gramoxone treatments are being made."

Ames Herbert, Virginia Extension Entomologist: "Peanuts are catching up with the cotton in terms of thrips damage now, as we predicted last week. Samples we took this week show a big jump in immatures, with higher numbers of them in these leaflets. And we’re starting to see damage now in our untreated plots. On a scale of 1 to 10, damage is averaging around 5, which means that about 100% of the leaves are crinkled and a lot of buds are starting to blacken. It’s going to get worse in peanuts before it gets better. If we get to 6.5 or above, we’ll definitely see a yield reduction in untreated peanuts. We’re seeing some Thimet burn, which is to be expected. But the Thimet and Temic treatments are holding. In both cotton and peanuts, we’ve been looking at Radiant, a new Dow product that’s mainly seen as a Lepidoptera material. We weren’t impressed with it last year in cotton but for some reason had gone with a 3 oz/acre rate, which was actually below the label rate for cotton of 4.25 to 8 oz/acre. This year we went with 6, and it’s working well, rivaling Orthene, which is our standard for foliar-applied thrips control. In these plots, Karate wasn’t looking much better than the untreated check. These were tobacco thrips, and the foliar comparisons are being made in peanuts that didn’t have in-furrow materials."

Justin Tuggle, CropDocs.Com, Plains, Texas: "We’re seeing at least a 60% decline in peanut acreage this year in the Southwest, maybe more. Texas makes up 90% of that, with New Mexico and Oklahoma accounting for the rest. At the most, we’ll have 165,000 acres in Texas this year, based on what I’m hearing from growers and people in the industry. Some of my major growers have cut back 45% to 80%. Yields were off last year and expenses were ridiculous. When shellers started offering contracts in early winter, the first ones I heard were $25 over loan rate. Some were a little higher later, but not enough to really get people intereted. Even though cotton was low at that point, a lot of growers decided to go with it, instead. With this reduced acreage, we actually finished 95% of our peanut planting here by May 15."

John Beasley, Georgia Extension Agronomist, Tifton, Ga.: "Some rain did fall last Thursday and Friday, and that slowed things down, but we had a dry weekend. Overall, an immense amount of planting has been accomplished in the last week. We’re encouraging growers to finish by the end of this week and certainly by June 15. Some peanuts planted in late April are pushing 50 days, and those need fungicides if they haven’t already gotten them – and pronto. We’ve had enough rainfall, along with this heat and humid conditions, that things are very favorable for leaf spot. Some tomato spotted wilt virus is out there, nothing severe, but it’s certainly present. Weeds are taking off with all this moisture. As soon as growers finish planting peanuts they need to start into herbicide work in the first fields planted and catch as many weeds as possible before they reach 2 inches. Some thrips are around, but I’m not seeing the activity we had on the earlier peanuts. I’ve had a few calls about stand issues. I’m seeing a lot of stands that aren’t ideal, but we can live with them and, under favorable conditions, they should be okay."

Kris Balkcom, Research Assistant, Wiregrass Research and Extension Center, Headland, Ala.: "We’re about through planting peanuts, I hope. We still have good moisture for most crops. The only one that needs rain right now is corn. Cotton is small, and so are peanuts, so there’s enough moisture to get them up and going. What we have left to plant are areas that have been real wet, and we’re able to get in those spots now. This seems to be the first week all season when we probably won’t have a shower. A fungicide already has gone out on our oldest peanuts. They’ve started blooming good and pinning down."

ALSO AT AGFAX.COM

Georgia Emerges From Three-Year Drought 6-11

Peanuts: Argentina begins pesticide analysis of peanuts headed for export 6-11

FSA Struggling to Meet Loan Demand 6-11

Texas Drought Devastating Crops 6-9

Georgia Seminole Crop E-News, 6-5, Controlling Glyphosate-Resistant Palmer Amaranth in Cotton; Field corn is silking and looking better.

Texas Crop and Weather Report, 6-10, Too early to assess extent of hail damage to cotton.

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