By Scott Tubbs, Sarah Beth Thompson, and Wesley Porter
While we are wrapping up the peanut season, and we have seen many peanuts that have been dug and even harvested across the state, it is important to note that we are not done with the season, and peanuts will require water until they are fully mature and ready to be inverted and picked. Due to the differing dynamics of this season, depending on whether you planted late-April, mid-May, or early-June you are in three different situations from the perspective of when you received rainfall and what the crop water usage was and is. This distribution of rainfall during specific crop stages can have a significant impact on final water requirements, crop growth, and yields. The three sections below will step you through each scenario and what to expect.
Earlier Plant Date – Late April
The early planted crop has received adequate rainfall to meet the crop water demand for a large chunk of the season, minus a 3-4 week dry spell during the mid-season. Unfortunately, that dry spell occurred at a critical time as we were trying to set a large proportion of the harvestable pods. Figure 1 represents the water-use/need curve for the peanut crop (blue dashed line) and can be compared to the actual rainfall received (yellow line) to get an idea of how it may affect maturity progression. The weather turned dry from approximately weeks 11-14 of crop growth (weeks 27-30 of the year in Figure 1). This was causing anywhere from 1.0 to 1.5 inch deficits during each of those weeks, for four consecutive weeks. Since that is roughly 77-98 days after planting for peanut planted around April 23, dryland peanuts could have a split maturity profile. Therefore, you will need to take a close look at the entire maturity profile when placing these samples on the board and do not just pull the trigger based on the leading edge of the profile. As we are nearing the end of the season, digging decisions need to also include vine and peg health as they could speed up your decision to dig. For example, if there is a healthy vegetative canopy that is not crashing and defoliating from leaf spot or other pathogens, then a grower may have the luxury of leaving them in the ground longer to progress a larger percentage of the late blooms without risk of losing the oldest and most mature pods (which will be your pods with the heaviest weight). But opening the pods to look at the interior and determine whether seed have turned loose in the hull (the funiculus detached between the kernel and the pod) will also help gauge whether those peanuts can hold on for longer, or whether they will soon break dormancy and begin sprouting on the vine, hence necessitating digging early regardless of the profile recommendation. READ MORE