Georgia Peanut Tour attendees were able to learn more about peanut harvest at Chase Farms in Ogelthorpe, Georgia. Attendees were greeted by father and son duo, Glen Lee and Donald. Together, they grow peanuts, field corn, sweet corn and raise poultry. Donald currently represents farmers in his area by serving as the District Five Georgia Peanut Commission Board member.

During the tour stop, attendees were also able to learn more about an on-farm research trial by the University of Georgia Peanut Team at Chase Farms. The research is focusing on the use of Apogee, a plant growth regulator. Apogee is applied twice per year to peanuts to help with excessive vine growth. The product works on peanuts by reducing vegative vine growth and increasing yields when used properly.

“We usually have bigger vines and this product is used to hold the vine growth down so that more energy goes into producing nuts rather than just producing vines,” Donald Chase says. “It is something that is promising.”

In addition to the digging demonstration, local county Extension agents presented a Harvest Maturity Clinic for tour attendees. Farmers utilize the hull scrape method or pod blasting and the Peanut Profile Board to determine if peanuts have reached optimum maturity for harvest. Digging peanuts is one of the biggest decisions farmers make each year. The maturity of a peanut affects the yield, flavor, grade and shelf life. Farmers can lose as much as 500 to 700 pounds per acre in fields if peanuts are harvested too early or too late. During the tour several county agents set up stations to show attendees how to use the Peanut Profile Board. To learn more about using the profile board, watch this video from an earlier tour.

View the 2019 Georgia Peanut Tour Photo Album.

To kick off the final day of the tour, Agri-AFC graciously hosted tour attendees at the company’s Cordele location. Agri-AFC, a company who supports crops of all varieties, was formed in the fall of 2003 as a joint venture between Alabama Farmers Cooperative and WinField United. This joining allowed local cooperative members of the Alabama Farmers Cooperative to have more competitively priced crop input products and availability of new products.

Since its inception, Agri-AFC has made several additions by purchasing fertilizer companies, retail locations and storage and handling facilities throughout the Southeast. Agri-AFC is based out of Decatur, Alabama, and currently has more than 300 employees. These employees staff the seven fertilizer terminals, three crop protection warehouses, three seed warehouses, eight professional products locations, a cotton gin and warehouse and 30 retail operations throughout the Southeast.

The Cordele location, seated on 13 acres, operates an 8,000-ton fertilizer plant and is home to the company’s largest retail location. For fertilizer specifically, the plant sees approximately 50 semi-trucks each day, where they operate a new high-speed system that loads trucks in six minutes or less; much faster than an older version that may take 45 minutes to an hour to load. Most peanuts are not fertilized; however, since peanuts are typically rotated with cotton and corn, both crops that need fertilizer, what this location offers is important to the South Georgia row crop farmer.

Clint Powell with Agri-AFC discusses different types of fertilizers with Peanut Tour attendees.

This location also services 12 of Georgia’s 14 stores as a full-service agricultural retailer, operating in 20,000 square feet of retail space. In addition to the fertilizer offered, the company treats corn, cotton and soybean seed, as well as rye, wheat and oats occasionally. They also sale a variety of chemical products for peanuts and other crops, as well as lime and land plaster.

View the 2019 Georgia Peanut Tour Photo Album

Upon leaving Golden’s shelling facility, tour attendees traveled down the road to Nolin Steel. Nolin Steel, a third generation, family-owned and operated business, is a machine manufacturing company in the peanut industry. The company was founded in 1975 by Guy and Frank Nolin in Commache, Texas, and originally focused on millwright work. The company moved to Ashburn in 1986 and over time, began making changes in manufacturing and redirecting its focus to custom equipment and niche markets. Today, Nolin Steel manufacturers a multitude of equipment products, including those for processing and materials handling. To keep up with new technology, investments in modern manufacturing have allowed them to handle many processes on site (design, laser cutting, forming, welding, powder coating and final assembly). The company is growth-oriented with 30 employees, 80,000+ square feet of space and endless possibilities.

Nolin Steel serves the peanut industry, as well as almonds, grain and feed. In regard to peanuts, they provide turn key projects for buying points and warehousing, shelling and in-shell plants, blanching plants, re-mill lines, seed treating lines and bulk load out systems. The company’s philosophy on equipment design is to make it effective (it must do a good job), durable (it must last a long time), simple (they follow the KISS method), efficient (lowest possible inputs to do the job at hand), user friendly (no advanced degrees needed) and inexpensive (their goal is to make a living, not a fortune). To view their peanut equipment, click here.

During the group’s visit at Nolin, attendees received a tour of Nolin’s manufacturing facility and a presentation on the company. Grant Nolin, president of the company, said one of the key take-home messages he wanted tour attendees to leave with is any size peanut shelling plant can be profitable. At Nolin Steel, their goal is to design exactly what the customer needs from the ground up; no matter the size. They want customers to understand their timeless values: hard work, quality, honesty and integrity, constant improvement and excellence. All things the Georgia Peanut Tour attendees were able to see.

View the 2019 Georgia Peanut Tour Photo Album

Now that tour attendees have seen how peanuts are taken to a buying point, the next step in the process is moving them to a shelling plant. In Georgia, farmers grow primarily runner peanuts. Runners are used in predominately peanut butter and peanut candy; therefore, they are almost always shelled before moving on to further processing. To show tour attendees what that process is like, a visit to Golden Peanut and Tree Nuts in Ashburn is on the agenda.

Golden Peanut and Tree Nuts, a wholly owned subsidiary of Archer Daniels Midland, is a leading sheller in the peanut industry. Dating back to the 1950s, Golden has consistently remained committed to the industry – to growers, manufacturers and the global market. In the United States alone, Golden has peanut shelling and specialty product facilities in Georgia (Ashburn, Blakely and Dawson), Alabama and Texas. Internationally, they have peanut shelling facilities in Argentina and South Africa. Their specialty products include peanut flours, oil and extract, as well as hull and fiber options.

The Ashburn facility, which has been in operation since 1967, operates as a sheller of runner peanuts only and provides cold storage. The Ashburn facility receives peanuts to shell from Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina.

To view the shelling process, check out this video from minute 6:22 to minute 8:44.

View the 2019 Georgia Peanut Tour Photo Album

The Georgia Peanut Tour visited Sasser 520 Peanut Buying Point so attendees could learn more about the first point of delivery for peanuts after harvest. Farmers haul their peanuts in wagons or semi trailers to the buying point. Prior to delivery the farmer tags the load in the field. The tag contains the producer’s name, farm and variety information.

Once at the buying point the peanuts are dryed in the wagons and then a sample is removed from the wagon for grading. The grading is handled by the Georgia Federal State Inspection Service. The peanuts are stored in warehouses and then hauled to shellers for additional processing.

View video of peanut grading.

View the 2019 Georgia Peanut Tour Photo Album.

The Georgia Peanut Tour visited the National Peanut Research Laboratory in Dawson, Ga. This lab was established in 1965 for the purpose of improving farming practices. Since that time, scientists have studied a variety of factors involved in peanut production from better planting practices to better irrigation practices. Scientists have also researched ways to improve harvesting methods, storage methods, and the better use of environmental and financial resources.

Dr. Marshall Lamb, research leader and location coordinator at the National Peanut Research Laboratory, says, “We are one of the only USDA ARS labs that is solely dedicated to peanut research. Here at the lab we are developing technology for the end users.”

The NPRL has four different main projects that they work under. One of those is a cropping systems unit where we look at crop rotations and irrigation. Secondly, NPRL has an engineering unit that Dr. Chris Butts is the lead on where researchers look at ways to improve efficiency and quality in the post harvest sector. NPRL also focuses efforts on chemistry, genetics, and molecular biology where researchers are looking at natural defense mechanisms for peanuts but also ways to improve drought tolerance, and to come out with improved varieties for the industry.

NPRL will be celebrating their 50^th anniversary this November. Through 50 years of research, scientists at the lab have created a tremendous amount of technology that is being used in the industry today. Originally, the focus at NPRL was on engineering and aflatoxins. However, over the years scientists have migrated to look at cropping systems type work and irrigation scheduling. Researchers at NPRL actually developed the Irrigator Pro scheduling system for managing the timing and amount of irrigation in peanuts. Researchers also developed Whole Farm which is a planning system that incorporates rotation data to help growers make better decisions on what to plant in the field for profit maximization.

Within the engineering unit at NPRL, Dr. Butts has done a lot of storage work both farmer stock storage and shelf stock storage. The research has actually changed the way the industry is looking at storing peanuts to maintain quality throughout storage. NPRL scientists are also looking at drought resistance projects with our cooperative breeding program with Auburn University. The program is showing a lot of promise with some of the cultivar lines that are showing drought resistance and will be available soon for farmers.

Dr. Renee Arias is working on ways to break the aflatoxin synthesis pathway and she has done an amazing amount of work on that area so that one day, we can hopefully eliminate aflatoxin contamination in peanuts. Her success has actually led to her receiving the Presidential Early Career Scientist of the Year Award a few years ago. Dr. Sobolev and Dr. Massa are working on looking at ways to increase phytoalexin production in peanuts which is a natural defense mechanism such that when a pathogen invades a peanut, it will be stronger and able to resist it better.

View the 2019 Georgia Peanut Photo Album.

The Georgia Peanut Tour attendees learned about the research conducted by University of Georgia Peanut Team members while touring the Southwest Georgia Research and Education Center in Plains, Georgia. Albert Culbreath, research plant pathologist at the University of Georgia Tifton campus, focuses his research on leaf spot diseases caused by a couple different fungi and tomato spotted wilt virus on peanuts. According to Culbreath, his research includes a variety of integrated management principles to try to take care of all those diseases as efficiently and economically as possible.

Culbreath coordinates research on resistant varieties and works with multiple breeding programs trying to develop better resistance to the tomato spotted wilt virus and leaf spot diseases. His research focuses on cultural practices and timing of planting that would affect both the leaf spot and the spotted wilt virus.

One of the things he spends a lot of time on especially with control of leaf spot diseases are fungicides. He says farmers are heavily dependent on fungicides for leaf spot control in peanuts. There are severe problems with resistance to about three classes of available fungicides. Through Culbreath’s research, he looks at different mixtures, timing, alterations and such that will give farmers the best performance of the fungicides that they have to use. That’s one of Culbreath’s main objectives for his work at the Southwest Georgia Research and Education Center in Plains, Georgia. He found a couple years ago that adding sulfur to several of the triazole fungicides that we depended upon and then last year adding sulfur to the Strobilurins fungicides greatly improves the efficiency with them even though we have resistance to those classes of fungicides.

Sulfur is a relatively safe and inexpensive addition and he has seen dramatic improvements in leaf spot control with that. So, in his tests in Plains this year, he is looking at different formulations of sulfur in combination with different fungicides that alone we don’t expect them to do that well. Through his research, he will see if adding sulfur to the fungicides helps to improve the control that we get from those fungicides.

View the 2019 Georgia Peanut Photo Album.

The Georgia Peanut Tour attendees learned about the research conducted by University of Georgia Peanut Team members while touring the Southwest Georgia Research and Education Center in Plains, Georgia. Scott Tubbs, UGA cropping systems agronomist, discussed some of his research projects focusing on seeding rates when planting. Most of his work focuses on peanut agronomic research, but he also does additional work in cropping systems related to rotations that are built around peanuts and other major crops that are grown in our systems.

He conducts research at multiple locations throughout the state so that the research is representative of all growing areas across the state. Research is conducted at the University of Georgia Southwest Research and Education Center in Plains, the  Southeast Research and Education Center in Midville, the Attapulgus Research and Education Center in the Southwest corner of Georgia and the UGA Tifton Campus. So his research covers the entire state, lots of different soil and climate types to test our trials in multiple different soils and different weather pattern conditions.

The research trial he is conducting at the Plains Research and Education Center is a grow pattern and seeding rate treatment effect on six different cultivars of peanuts. He is testing six different varieties that were bred in four different programs from our public breeding institutions which include: University of Georgia, Auburn University, University of Florida, and the USDA ARS Breeding Programs. This trial is looking at twin row versus single row peanut using three different seeding rates of 5, 6 and 7 seed per foot for each one of those varieties.

In years past, he has conducted some similar research and noticed that the twin row row pattern will support a slightly higher seeding rate than the single row row pattern for maximizing yield potential. Results have shown that farmers can sometimes actually reduce their seeding rate a little bit lower in single row without losing yield potential. However, farmers may run into potentially some tomato spotted wilt virus interactions by reducing seeding rate at certain times of the year with certain varieties that are more susceptible to that virus.

View the 2019 Georgia Peanut Tour Photo Album.

Tour attendees visited the farm of Sedrick Rowe in Americus, Georgia, to learn more about organic peanut production. Rowe is a first-generation farmer who started growing organic peanuts two years ago. He is currently growing 12 acres of organic peanuts in Americus and 12 acres of organic peanuts in Dougherty County, Georgia. He grows corn for his rotation crop and grows rye and wheat for a cover crop. Rowe planted the peanut variety Georgia-12Y this year. He currently markets his peanuts through a combined effort with other organic growers through the Georgia Organic Peanut Association. Some of the organic peanuts are sold to Georgia Grinders Peanut Butter.

Sedrick Rowe, organic peanut farmer in Americus, Georgia.

Rowe says the main issues he has faced with growing organic peanuts is weed control with the limited amount of chemicals he can use. Attendees on the tour were able to view Rowe’s field and see some of the morningglory weed that Rowe had issues with this year. Rowe uses a Kubota M7060 tractor, a rolling cultivator to loosen the soil and help control weeds and weed wiper. He also hand pulls some of the weeds in the field. He also uses a two-row peanut digger at harvest. This year he is purchasing a peanut combine from Ag Pro in Blakely to harvest his peanuts.

Organic peanut field.

Founded in 2019, the Georgia Organic Peanut Association (GOPA) is a farmer-owned cooperative incorporated in the state of Georgia to market USDA Certified Organic peanuts and other agricultural products. The cooperative’s small farmers come from across the state and have almost 50 years of combined experience growing organic crops. The organization is committed to bringing added value to established farming operations and to creating new opportunities for small and beginning producers in the region.

Organic peanuts in Georgia are sold through a combined partnership to Georgia Grinders.

In 2018, with financial support from the USDA Office of Partnerships and Public Engagement and the Bradley-Turner Foundation, Georgia Organics led a one-year project to develop a supply chain and marketplace around Certified Organic peanuts that could support small farmers.

The following video from Anthony-Masterson is an overview of that collaboration. Click here to view the video.

View the 2019 Georgia Peanut Tour Photo Album.

The Georgia Peanut Tour kicked off with a Hot Topics Seminar on Tuesday, Sept. 17 at Lake Blackshear Golf Resort in Cordele. During the seminar Scott, Monfort, University of Georgia Extension Peanut Agronomist. According to Monfort the 2019 peanut crop pretty much the same as most years but the weather is not what you would consider a normal
year. Georgia growers planted approximately 650,000 acres of peanuts in 2019. At the beginning of the season, farmers started out in a good situation where they had plenty of moisture and heat to get the peanuts planted earlier than the last couple of
years. Then the weather changed and farmers ran out of moisture real quick and the weather turned hot. The temperatures soared to 90+ degrees and the middle to latter part of May all the way through today. We’ve had a tremendous amount of 90 degree temperatures all the way through the growing season this year with a limited amount of moisture. We did get moisture but it was pretty limited for the most part.

So when you start to look at the crop this year, there’s several things participants will notice on the tour. The irrigated peanuts which are about 50% of our peanuts look above average, because again they had the heat to push the crop but they also had the moisture. You can put on the moisture at any given moment during that period. Where we have problems that we are worried about right now is the non-irrigated crop and in any given year, we talk about how Mother Nature can throw a curve ball at us, in pockets or regions of Georgia but this year its all over. There have been some areas that received moisture at the right times and so there are some non irrigated crops that look just as good as irrigated crops. But, when you look at the average of non irrigated crop, it’s going to be below what we typically like to see yield and quality wise.

Georgia farmers have had problems with tomato spotted wilt virus, as well as, lesser corn salt borers and diseases. We are dealing with that and that’s going to cause some problems but overall the hot dry conditions is the major issue that we are dealing with.

Farmers are in the harvest season right now, it is the second week of September. We have been digging and harvesting peanuts for approximately a week a half now. Some of those are because we planted earlier, and we were able to mature those out and needed to come out of the ground to be harvested. A lot of those especially the irrigated crop looks pretty good. They are yielding very well as well as grading well – the quality is good at this time. As far as the non irrigated crop, farmers were able to save some of that crop by digging early because it did not put on any more peanuts beyond a certain period. So, they are digging those peanuts as well.

View the 2019 Georgia Peanut Photo Album.