The question that comes from many of you who have peanut growers in your county is “Does this grower need to use Thimet in-furrow now to fight thrips and tomato spotted wilt?” As you have probably heard Dr. Mark Abney say, there is never a bad time for a peanut grower to use Thimet at planting. I agree with that. However, if the questions asked is “Is there situation where a grower can safely plant with something other than Thimet,” the answer to that, based upon Peanut Rx (Peanutrx.org) is “yes, there is”.
The picture included here is a screen shot sent to me by a consultant in SW Georgia who has a grower planting Georgia 12Y soon after 15 May. His grower would like to use imidicloprid in-furrow to save on cost. This consultant went to the Peanut Rx website and generated the attached graphic where “planting date window” is along the vertical axis and “risk points for spotted wilt” are along the horizontal axis. Here, “Green” means “low risk”, Yellow means “moderate risk” and “red” means high risk”. The consultant developed this where “Other than Thimet” was selected as the at-plant insecticide choice.
As you can see, 5-point varieties, like Georiga-12Y, are considered “low risk” or “Green” without use of Thimet if planted after May 1st, as are 10 point varieties. This is especially true if planted after 15 May.
Is there ever a “bad time” to plant peanuts with Thimet in Georgia? No. Can growers save money and plant with imidicloprid and keep risk to spotted wilt low? Yes, IF they carefully follow Peanut Rx. To such safely requires low risk varieties and low risk planting dates.
Special thanks to Dr. Barry Tillman for developing the initial program to generate such graphics from Peanut Rx and to Dr. Joe Laforest for developing the Peanutrx.org website.