Rodney & Gary Dawson

The 150 attendees on the Georgia Peanut Tour began Wed. morning with a visit at Dawson Brothers Farm in Pulaski. This family farm started with 100 acres in the late 1800s. Since that time the farm has continued to expand to 8,000 acres today. Brothers, Rodney Dawson, John Dawson, Jr. and Gary Dawson, are the fourth generation to farm the land in Pulaski County. The diverse farming operation consists of 1,900 acres of peanuts, 5,500 acres of cotton, 1,000 acres of soybeans, 1,200 acres of wheat, 300 acres of watermelon and 300 acres of corn. To help manage their peanut crop the Dawson brothers have been utilizing a Peanut Intensive Management Program developed by their local county extension agent Ronnie Barrentine. Through this program they use Irrigator Pro to schedule their irrigation, monitor their fungicide sprays for disease, monitor their soil temperature and hire a scout to check to for insects. The family also utilizes new technology on their farm including GPS and RTK to help when planting, spraying and harvesting their crops. RTK is a process where GPS signal corrections are transmitted in real time from a reference receiver at a known location to one or more remote rover receivers. This allows peanut farmers the ability to mark their rows when planting peanuts and then be able to find the rows when it is time for digging the peanuts at harvest. As the peanut plant grows the leaf canopy covers the ground to where it is almost impossible to see where the rows are. By using RTK the tractor is able to stay on the actual row and help prevent loss from digging off of the row.