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By Lana Robinson
Field Editor
The Central Texas peanut harvest is essentially complete, but in West Texas, it's been a stop-and-go harvest due to fall rains.
On Nov. 9, Bob Whitney, Comanche County Extension agent, reported that the legumes in his area, with the exception of a few dryland Spanish peanuts here and there, had been dug.
"All the irrigated stuff is out and gone. It's been a pretty good year. I've heard a few reports indicating that the irrigated peanuts, even though they were only irrigated a few times, and most of our dryland and runner peanuts did well. Yields were good. There were a few disease problems, but our producers were able to stay on top of that. The land has been rotated so much here lately, that has reduced soil diseases. We are anticipating, overall, the yield to be right around 3,800 lbs. to the acre," said Whitney.
Comanche County, once a hotbed of peanut production with 45,000 acres, has about 3,500 peanut acres today. Production moved to West Texas (primarily Gaines and Terry counties) to take advantage of similar sandy soil and irrigation and to escape nematodes. Changes in the farm program, which lowered the price of peanuts by almost $300 per ton, also drove many peanut producers to relocate for efficiency.
Whitney said local farmers, very much concerned with reducing their costs, combine peanut production, or rotate, with silage crops, forage, watermelons, and small grains, along with cattle in winter.
Whitney said 2004 prices were strong.
"The minimum is $300, and we were getting $425 and $430 a ton. Those with bonuses and seed contracts were getting up to $475," he said.
The same day, Terry Millican, Gaines County Extension agent, said Seminole-area producers were in the middle of harvest. Gaines County acreage was right at 60,000 this year.
"Overall, our crop looks very good. It started out good and continued that way," Millican said. "Timely rains helped us out. As far as yields go, it looks really good. We'll make 4,000 or 5,000—up to 6,000— pounds. Last year, we had some go to 7,000, the top end of that scale."
Millican listed four types of peanuts typically grown in Gaines County and other parts of Texas: Runners, the most common, Virginia, Spanish and a few Valencias.
Millican said water is the key to high yields.
"Those farms that have enough water, and good water, have good yields. Those with limited water, it's hard to say. A lot depends on how those farmers manage," he said.
Late season diseases have posed a few problems. Some rare ones, typically seen only in the Southeastern United States, showed up in West Texas this year, according to the Texas Peanut Producers Board in Lubbock. One is sclerotinia blight, a disease that kills the plants so that it breaks off during harvest and the peanuts stay in the ground. A disease that resembles sclerotinia blight, but different, is botrytis. Treating for the diseases is expensive. However, Millican said the problems were not out of hand. Leaf spot was a more common culprit, but farmers were able to cover chemical costs with money saved from irrigation in a wet year.
"From a harvest standpoint, about the time it dries out enough to get in the fields, it rains again. We've got a chance of rain even today," he reported.
The big thing is getting the peanuts out before a freeze, which has the potential to do a lot of damage.
"We have maybe just a little bit of a problem from the standpoint that it is still cold and kind of wet. We need to get the crop out of the field. Other than that, it's the best we've had in several years. These guys are really pleased with it," said Millican.
According to a National Agricultural Statistics Service news release dated Oct. 12, 2004, Texas peanut production is down 4 percent from last year, at 775.5 million pounds. Statewide yield, at 3,300 pounds per acre, is up 300 pounds from last year.
Texas farmers annually plant 330,000 acres of peanuts.
