Sunny, breezy days. Trees budding into a thousand shades of
green and flowers flaunting
all the colors they can create. It feels like spring, when a
man’s thoughts turn naturally to
planting.

“Yes, we do normally recommend that farmers plant their peanut
crop when soil
temperatures rise above 65 degrees for three or more days. But
early March is just too
early,” said John Beasley, a peanut agronomist with the
University of Georgia Extension
Service.

“There’s a lot at stake here,” Beasley said.

Unusually warm days and nights in early March warmed the soil to
temperatures ideal for
planting peanuts. And early spring rains provided the moisture
seeds need to germinate.

But with the soil ideal for planting, Beasley was telling
farmers to wait. “Weather is very
fickle,” he said. “Don’t let it lull you into a false sense of
security.” Wait until fields have
those same soil conditions, he said, between April 15 and May
20.

“Georgia’s $388.5 million peanut crop is at stake,” he said.
Planting peanuts too early can
cost farmers dearly.

But the temptation is there. Farmers have to carefully schedule
their planting based on
weather, soil conditions and other tasks on the farm.

“More and more farming operations work more land with fewer
workers,” he said. “That
puts a lot of stress on farmers to get everything done in a
timely manner.”

Beasley said peanut seeds are extremely sensitive to temperature
changes.

“Once the seed germinates and sprouts leaves, it’s a little more
cold hardy,” he said. “But if
the farmer plants and a cold front moves through, he’s running
the risk that the seed won’t
germinate and will just sit there prone to disease organisms and
rot.”

If a cold front moves into the area after soil preparation but
before planting, it may force
the farmer to wait to plant. That can undo all he’s done to get
the soil ready.

“Herbicides and insecticides can dissipate — the farmer may
have to reapply those,”
Beasley said. “Heavy rainfall can pack the soil and form a
crust — he may have to
reharrow the field. A lot of money and time go into land
preparation.”

Farmers may face a bigger problem if they plant early. Beasley
said tomato spotted wilt,
caused by a virus, inflicts the most damage on peanuts planted
early in the season.

“All our research on TSWV,” he said, “shows the heaviest losses
in peanuts planted before
April 10.”

The virus stunts young plants’ growth so they often don’t even
produce peanut pods.
Plants infected after pods form may not produce any more pods,
but there are at least
some nuts on the plant for harvest.

Beasley and UGA plant pathologists and entomologists figured
this virus cost Georgia
farmers about 10 percent of their 1996 crop, or $38.8 million.

That alone is enough to convince many farmers to wait, he
said.

“I’m encouraging farmers to not be the first one in their
neighborhood to plant,” he said.
“It’s just not worth the risks to be able to say you’re
first.”