A few of us took a trip Tuesday over to a place called Vidette which is just outside of Louisville to talk with Dr. Alton Walker about his cover crops. Alton has been using no-tillage and a variety of cover crop rotations for several years in order to build up his organic matter and nutrient levels in his soil. His operation is a little different from most of what we have down here but it was very interesting to see and we even may have picked up a few tips and tricks we might start trying. You have to see it to believe it (picture below) but he had some cotton with the potential to make 1200lbs. That cotton had 7 units of nitrogen on it.
Cotton: Areolate Mildew is all around us. I haven’t seen much of it in the fields I’ve been in but I hear they are seeing a good bit in Colquitt. Most folks I’ve talked to are proactively treating with Abound. You’ll get about 2 good weeks out of Abound and could stretch it to 3 in the right weather conditions. These are not the right weather conditions so keep it tight on 2 weeks.
Peanuts: I just checked some 140-day peanuts that look to be a week to 12 days off. I keep thinking this crop will be a little late so we’ll have to keep a good check on them. I’m interested to see what the May peanuts are looking like. As the peanuts are looking to go longer that means that you will need to stay with your white mold program to probably around the 120-day mark. Found a little bit of underground white mold this week but it was only in a small spot. The grower runs a Cadillac fungicide program but the toll of all this rain was bound to show up. He’ll stay after it and keep it in check but just know that the wetness this year has kept disease pressure high. In case you’ve missed it here is the blasting schedule for this year, 2021 Peanut Maturity Checks. As always you can call and set up a schedule anytime.