Congratulations to Andrew Grimes who is the Peanut Achievement winner for District IV in the 300-699 acreage category. We will be in Jekyll this weekend for him to receive his award and to see if he can bring home the state award for the 300-699 acreage category.
Disease: Tropical Storm Fred is currently anticipated to track across the tip of Florida and hook up through the panhandle and into south Georgia. If this happens then we could see some delay on getting back into the fields. If you are due for a fungicide application next week you may want to consider going early before Fred gets here. If he keeps on his current track, we should start to see some effects from Fred Sunday night.
Cotton: A few days of sunshine has really made this cotton start to look better. Those wet, overcast days were starting to work on it but the sun popped out and perked it back up. I’ve been seeing some worm feeding. It’s best to identify which worm is doing the feeding. The Bt genes are still working but were losing the 1st gene and starting to see the 2nd gene weaken, so that’s why it’s important to consider 3 genes when selecting a variety. Tobacco Budworms are still controlled fairly well by the Bts however Corn Earworms are becoming less susceptible to Bt genes. The ones I’ve found have been Tobacco Budworms, you can tell by the chevron pattern on the back of the moth and they were in 2 gene cotton. We don’t need to lose Tobacco Budworms to Bts because they already have a pyrethroid resistance.
Feeding damage on cotton 
Tobacco budworm moth
Peanut: Were getting close to the 100-day mark for peanuts planted on May 1st. In Tifton, we’ve had about 44 inches of rain since April which is up from our average of 27 inches during that time frame. Our heat units are a little off as we’re at about 1900 heat units for May 1st planted peanuts. This will all come into play when we start maturity checks. The May planted peanuts may fall in line more with the April peanuts. Once we start getting to the 120 DAP mark we need to start spot-checking some peanuts to gauge where they’re at. We will be doing some peg strength checks this fall too. We ran into a problem with peg strength last year so we’re going to start from the beginning this year. I’ve gotten several calls about late herbicide applications. Nutgrass, Eclipta, and a few others. Each scenario is different but this late in the game it’s not going to be beneficial. You can’t get the herbicide down through the canopy to kill the weed. You’ll just burn the top of it off and it will grow right back. Save that money. If the Pigweed and/or Beggarweed are really bad, you have two options. You can use a wiper with paraquat or a flail mower.