The Georgia Peanut Tour kicked off with a Hot Topics Seminar on Tuesday, Sept. 18. During the seminar Scott Monfort, University of Georgia Extension peanut agronomist provided an update on the 2018 Georgia peanut crop. According to Monfort, farmers have a very good crop to look at although we have had several challenges that we have had to face in 2018. We’ve had a lot of rain and we usually don’t complain about rain, but this year we’ve had a tremendous amount of rain throughout the growing year and it has caused some of the crop to be quite a bit late. The peanut production has basically divided into two crops this year. We’ve got our early crop and our late crop and for the most part we are just now getting to dig this early crop and it looks pretty good right now. We are dealing with diseases and insect problems as well as some harvest problems just because of the rain we continue to get. We need a good bit of dry weather in order to get these peanuts out of the ground, get them dry and get them harvested and to the buying point. As you are out this week looking at the different processes we go through to harvest this crop you’ll understand more of what I’m talking about here. Some of these areas will be lush and green then some areas will have dry pockets. For the most part this year its average to above average depending on how well the weather holds out and stays hot through October. That’s going to be a big factor here to how this crop turns up. At this point we are saying that we do have a good crop, but we do have quite a few challenges we are facing and dealing with this year.
