After nearly a week of waiting, Georgia peanut farmers have
finally gotten back into
their fields after getting 2 to 6 inches of rain from the
remnants of Hurricane Georges.
Many didn’t like what they found.
“The biggest impact Georges had was in delaying field
activity at a critical point
in the harvest,” said John
Beasley, an Extension Service peanut
agronomist with the University of Georgia College
of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.
That delay could cost the state’s peanut growers $30
million to $40 million. Beasley
said that’s a conservative figure.
“It’s hard to estimate these losses just from Georges,”
Beasley said.
“So many other factors have affected the crop, it’s hard to
put dollars to it.”
|
Send e- |
| PICKING PEANUTS after Georges means leaving nuts in the dirt for many farmers. Already weakend vines sat wet for seven to 10 days, weakening further while farmers waited for fields to dry out. On the Phillips’ farm in Ben Hill County, Kyle Phillips said Georges kept him from digging three days early. “It actually will have helped us when it’s all over,” he said. Experts hope benefits like those will help offset overall losses expected to top $40 million. |
The Georgia Agricultural Statistics Service reports that
12 percent to 15 percent of
the crop had been dug and was waiting to be picked when
Georges came.
Beasley said several diseases, including tomato spotted
wilt virus, white mold and
Cylindrocladium black rot, had already weakened plants.
“The midseason drought didn’t help, either,” he
said. “With timely rain
through the summer, the plants probably would have been
strong enough to hold onto the
nuts through Georges.”
Farmers who dug their peanuts just before Georges made
landfall on Sept. 28 hoped to
get them harvested before the storm brought rain. But the
storms clouds slowed drying
time. Many farmers had to wait to harvest until after the
storm passed and their fields
dried out.
“That was a wait of seven to 10 days, instead of the
usual three to four, between
digging and harvesting,” Beasley said. “Harvesting literally
tore the peanuts
off the vine before they were in the harvester.”
It was worse for farmers who began digging after Georges
passed. “The vines were
just too weak to hold on to the nuts as the digger pulled
the plants out of the
ground,” Beasley said. Many nuts were left in the soil.
Researchers have found that leaving peanuts in the field
even one week past their peak
maturity can cause yield losses of 200 to 250 pounds per
acre. After two weeks, yields can
drop by 300 to 500 pounds per acre.
“The longer the peanuts stay in the ground, the more
quality they lose, too,”
Beasley said. “So farmers lose quality as well as
quantity.”
For a few farmers, though, Georges brought good news.
“Some areas had fields planted late or didn’t have
irrigation. And the rain from
Georges will probably help them mature a crop that didn’t
set until August,” Beasley
said. “That could help offset the overall losses from this
storm.”
