We are on the tail end of the 2024 row crop season. Peanuts planted 1st week of May will be at around 120 days this weekend and this is when it is a good time to start thinking about pulling a sample from those fields to check the maturity of the crop. If you need samples checked give me a call to set up a time. I also do not mind coming out to pull a sample for you. Although, if i am too busy to come out to pull a sample for you and you have to do so on your own time it is very important you pull a good representative sample of the field. Here is the recommended practice of pulling a peanut maturity sample… Pull up (or even better, dig up) about 5 adjacent plants from at least 3 representative areas of a field. Pick ALL of the peanuts off a plant one plant at a time until you have around 200 peanuts. If the sample will have to sit a while before I can blast it, keep the peanuts in a bucket of water to keep them fresh. Below is a chart to use to easily determine the days after planting (DAP) of each of your crop plantings.
I am also starting to see some open bolls in cotton fields around the county. Something we need to start thinking about in this early planted cotton is when to terminate irrigation, see the water use chart below for cotton based on growth stage and DAP. UGA’s official irrigation termination recommendation for cotton is at an average of 10% open boll across a field. 10 percent open is not a high number of bolls that are open to start considering irrigation termination. A plant with 12 harvestable bolls means you need to be looking at the available soil moisture if 1.2 bolls are open. Recent studies have even suggested that terminating irrigation at cut out could be an option as long as the soil profile is well saturated at the time of termination. Here is the link to the paper discussing this: Effect of irrigation termination times on cotton cultivars with contrasting maturities. You can also listen to the recent Talkin’ Cotton Podcast (link further in this newsletter) to hear the Cotton Teams discussion on this matter. As we are approaching harvest season I would also like to share with you a link to the UGA Cotton Specialist, Dr. Camp Hand, recommendations on cotton defoliation https://extension.uga.edu/publications/detail.html?number=C1281&title=cotton-defoliation-in-georgia.
See flyer below for information about the upcoming 2024 Row Crop Harvest Meeting. Come out to Southeastern Gin and Peanut on September 12th, 2024 at 10:00. Specialists from the UGA Cotton Team and the UGA Peanut team, as well as representatives from multiple industries, will be speaking about considerations for this years row crop harvest. Feel free to bring by peanut samples to have checked for maturity at the meeting. Feel free to share this newsletter and flyer with friends and colleagues.
UGA Cotton Team Podcast
Below is a link to the fourteenth episode of the Talkin’ Cotton Podcast, which is a discussion on the crop on the East side of the state, when to terminate irrigation, late season plant bugs, and the overall status of the crop. Feel free to share far and wide. It will be posted on the UGA Cotton Team website tomorrow. Remember, the link below will take you to buzzsprout, but the podcast is also posted on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Amazon Music.
Episode 14 – https://www.buzzsprout.com/2350262/15624856
UGA Peanut Team Podcast
EPISODE 26, Season 2
In this episode, Dr. Scott Monfort talked peanuts with Dr. Eric Prostko, and Dr. Wes Porter. In this episode, the peanut team talked about the current crop situation and things to keep in mind as we approach harvest. Topics also include ESA Herbicide Strategies released by EPA and revisiting mistakes observed this year.