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Owen Taylor, Editor, 888-327-6329

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OVERVIEW

Hot, dry weather has settled over the lower Southeast and Midsouth. Portions of south Alabama and Georgia are pushing 2 weeks without a rain, while production areas in south Mississippi are approaching the 3-week mark. Temperatures have nudged into triple digits in places. The hot weather is expected to spread north over the next several days. Parts of the upper Southeast have received widespread showers to the point that soybean planting has stopped across much of North Carolina.

Worms are turning up in southwestern Georgia and adjoining areas in Alabama. Limited treatments were reported. See comments by Ames Herbert about thrips in Virginia.

Leaf spot has popped up a bit in Georgia, while tomato spotted wilt is turning up in Virginia.

PEANUTFAX CROP REPORTS, JUNE 18, 2009

Rusty Harris, Worth County Extension Agent, Sylvester, Ga.: "The main issues in peanuts right now have to do with weeds. But on the plus side all the rain this spring has ensured herbicide activity, and weed control has been good in a lot of cases. Some people are calling with questions about tropical spiderwort. If you ever let it get up, the only option is Gramoxone and Dual. The combination does a pretty good job on 2-leaf plants or smaller. But you don’t want to let it get past that."

Alan Blaine, Southern Ag Consulting, Starkville, Miss.: "It’s been a struggle getting a stand. Normally, you don’t think about this being a big problem with peanuts, but I can’t imagine a season when it would be much harder to get a crop started. In parts of the Delta where we have peanuts, it rained 20 inches during planting season. We’ve had to do a lot of slot planting and replanting, but those later plantings made a fast start and actually emerged to uniform stands. Preemergence herbicides worked wonderfully with all this moisture – maybe too good, since we’re finding a little stunting. Peanuts have been a little slow to emerge in some of those cases, but we didn’t see any herbicide symptomology when they did come up. This year, any semblance of a row helped us make a stand. With all the rain we went through, even a couple of inches of elevation made all the difference in the world. Overall, my clients will plant 60% to maybe 65% of their intended peanut acreage. We finally pulled the plug on some of it because it was simply too late. Even with what we did plant, we’ll need a fairly cooperative fall to help mature this crop. We didn’t get that last year. It turned into a long, drawn out harvest, and we couldn’t get them all."

Clyde Smith, Regional IPM Agent, Jackson County, Fla.: "Issues in peanuts mostly revolve around weeds. With planting compacted into such a short timeframe, a lot of folks didn’t apply herbicides or work ground when they needed to, so weeds are taking advantage of some of these opportunities. With these higher temperatures, a lot of Palmer pigweed is coming on, and in 6 days it can be 8 inches tall. Control certainly falls off when it’s more than 2 inches tall. It will be tough to fight it in places."

John Beasley, Georgia Extension Agronomist, Tifton, Ga.: "It’s gotten very, very hot, and it’s been 2 weeks since we’ve had a substantial rain. On these sandy soils, it doesn’t take much to put our peanuts under stress, and we need to be watering in our most advanced peanuts. They’re blooming and pegging now, so we’re shifting into that period with heavier water demand, and 100-degree temperatures this week only increase the need to irrigate. I was in a field in Coffee County this morning (6/17) where peanuts had been planted last Thursday, and the grower wasn’t sure there was enough moisture for germination. Some plants had emerged, but he was putting on 2 to 3 tenths to make sure the seed zone didn’t dry out.

"David Adams (interim Extension Peanut Entomologist) said a mix of worms is being found in the southwest corner of the state, maybe a combination of corn earworms and tobacco budworms. None of the reports indicated there were treatable levels, but they are present and could build. Bob Kemerait (Extension Plant Pathologist) says that early leaf spot is breaking loose in some areas. In dry conditions it won’t develop as quickly, but we do have enough humidity to still spread it. Between 50% and 60% of our crop was planted by the middle of May, so those fields went through that extended period of wet weather and definitely need a fungicide now that they’re hitting 30 days. Some of our earliest peanuts may already be on their second application."

Kris Balkcom, Research Assistant, Wiregrass Research and Extension Center, Headland, Ala.: "The crop is doing pretty good, but conditions have gotten hot. The thermometer on my truck reads 102 right now (6/17). A little rain moved through this area on Sunday. Some people got an inch, others none. With all the delays this year, peanuts aren’t at a critical point yet in terms of rain. And, if anything, growers needed a little break in the weather to spray and finish planting or replanting in wet spots. It seems like everyone has finished planting now. Fungicides are going out, and about half the crop is getting its first application. Normally, 75% of it would be on the first application right now, and some fields would even be on the second. I’ve gotten a report of worms being picked up in Houston County in southeast Alabama. Hopefully, this won’t be a worm year like we had in 2008. Worms also are turning up in one area in southwest Alabama, but that part of the state tends to have early insect pressure, anyway."

Mike Howell, Extension Area Agronomist, Gulfport, Miss.: "It was 101 yesterday (6/16) on my truck thermometer at one point, so it was at least in the upper 90s. Some places may have hit a record high yesterday, and the forecast calls for maybe another record today. So, it’s hot, and this Friday (6/19) it will have been 3 weeks since we’ve had a drop of rain here. The weatherman isn’t even saying we’ve got that marginal 10% chance – nothing at all is in the forecast. Overall, the crop does look good, although some is obviously on the late side. No problems are turning up. I think everybody finally quit planting. They didn’t finish, they just reached the point that they had to quit. The Mississippi crop this year – despite the fact that it got too late to plant all we wanted – will still be close to what we had last year. In 2008, we planted 22,000 acres. This crop should range between 20,000 and 22,000, I think."

Wes Briggs, Briggs Crop Services, Inc., Bainbridge, Ga.: "We’ve started our first fungicides, and most of my peanuts have had the Cadre/layby treatment. We’re finding some worms, probably a combination of corn earworms and tobacco budworms, and we’re making applications in a few fields. A lot of peanuts went in late this year, and we’ll need good conditions until November 1 to make anything like a normal crop in those fields."

Ames Herbert, Virginia Extension Entomologist: "Peanuts are still under pressure from thrips, but planting-time treatments are holding for growers, as best as we can determine. We are seeing scattered tomato spotted wilt virus (TSWV) symptoms, which would indicate thrips activity, but it’s too early to say how that will play out. We haven’t had a bad TSWV season in several years. We’re still not done with thrips and maybe have another 7 to 10 days of pretty intensive pressure. We’ve gotten 2 calls about cases where thrips are hard to control. Treatments were made but a lot of live thrips were still out there. We haven’t gotten a sample yet to analyze, but the reports came from 2 consultants who know what they’re talking about. This sounds suspiciously like western flower thrips. But we won’t know for sure until we get specimens in our lab."

ALSO AT AGFAX.COM

Alabama Timely Information, 6-16, Alabama IPM Insect Pheromone Trap Network Is Now Active.

Texas Crop, Weather, 6-17, Dryland cotton failing, irrigated faring better, peanuts doing well.

Virginia Ag Pest Advisory, 6-12, Thrips numbers decreased in cotton; peanuts still at risk; lot of thrips on soybeans.

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Owen Taylor, Editor. owen@agfax.com

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