Peanut crop a mixed bag, with lower yields due to summer heat wave

Oct. 24—DOERUN — With a narrow miss from a tropical storm during harvest time, a bit of drought, a summer heat wave that baked crops and an unneeded cold snap, it was a fairly typical year for farmers in southwest Georgia.

As peanut harvest season is winding down, the outlook is lower peanut yields due to that heat wave, Jeremy Kichler, a Colquitt County agricultural extension agent said Monday.

"We went through that extremely hot time in June," he said. "Nothing really does well when it's 100 degrees. The consensus is that is probably what caused it. When it gets that hot, plants shut down."

At DeMott Peanut Co., the bustle of the previous month was winding down as most of the crop has been harvested. Federal graders were at work, and a few trailers of goobers were still awaiting weighing and warehousing.

And there is good news, Kichler said.

"Peanuts are doing well, qualitywise," he said.

In 2021 the state's peanut crop was valued at more than $740 million.

Those who harvest later had issues with dry weather and the cold snap.

"Last week was a challenge," Kichler said. "When you think about maturity, peanuts don't really mature when you have several days of upper-30s, lower-40s. We're rocking along on the harvest. It's good weather for that."

The colder weather also caused farmers to halt applications of cotton defoliant to prepare the crop for picking.

With peanut harvesting over, the gathering of later-planted cotton will begin in earnest.

"I see some challenges heading into the winter — drought, fertilizer prices are probably going to increase," Kichler said. "Interest rates are going up. Cotton prices plummeted. We're in the 70s (70 cents per pound) now. We were actually at $1 earlier."