It’s not this way everywhere in the United States, but in the Southeast, growers look to university Extension for recommendations — the “non-biased, research-based” recommendations that can be used to help make important production decisions.  

Approaching 25 years at the University of Georgia, I recognize that not every grower is going to follow my advice.   

Growers may consider recommendations to too burdensome or too expensive or simply not appropriate for their farming operation. Growers may get conflicting recommendations from seed dealers, ag product distributors, consultants and their neighbors. Growers will have heard Extension tell them that while these recommendations are based upon the results of our research, what happens on your farm may be different than on other farms and the final decision is always yours.   

Shannon Nixon is a grower who carefully weighed his options and decided his only choice to remain profitable was to grow peanuts and soybeans in short rotation with each other. Though Shannon is in Florida and I am Georgia, we maintain a close relationship built upon friendship and my interest in his farming operation. I took great pride when Shannon was recently recognized as the lower Southeast’s 2024 Farm Press Peanut Efficiency Award winner at the Southern Peanut Growers Conference in Savannah.   

The commandment

Even before I had the chance to congratulate Shannon, I was hearing through mutual friends that Shannon was preparing for my wrath. My wrath? Yes, I know, patience is not my strong suit, but my wrath? It turns out that Shannon was able to earn this recognition while breaking one of “Bob’s 10 Commandments of Disease and Nematode Management in Peanut Production.” This commandment reads. “Thou Shall Not Grow Peanuts and Soybeans in Rotation Together” and after remaining successful despite breaking this fundamental rule of peanut farming, Shannon knew I would have something to say to him.

Growers are advised against growing peanuts and soybeans together primarily because these crops share two important diseases and one important nematode problem.  

Rotating peanuts with soybeans increases the risk of Cylindrocladium black rot (known as “CBR” and as “red crown rot” in soybeans) and white mold (also known as “southern blight”). Both peanuts and soybeans are hosts to the peanut root-knot nematode.    

Where CBR and/or the peanut root-knot nematodes occur, planting peanuts and soybeans in rotation together is a recipe for disaster. Maybe not this year, or even next year. However, over time the rotation will give a gift to these peanut farmers that keeps on giving, and not in a good way. Shannon is aware of all of this, but to keep farming for today and tomorrow, he has had to make some decisions that he will likely change as soon as he can somewhere down the road. 

This isn’t the first time a “Bob commandment” has been broken by a highly successful peanut farmer.  Not too many years ago I learned that a father and son team in eastern Georgia began their fungicide program 60 days after planting. I’ll repeat that. They began their program 60 days after planting. If you listen to Bob, you would believe that peanut fungicide programs should begin at 30 days after planting and no later than 45 days after planting, given your rotation, choice of fungicide, and whether or not you used Velum in-furrow.   

Still these growers waited until roughly 60 days AND were successful in fighting diseases. These growers were able to start later because they had excellent crop rotation and carefully watched their fields for onset of disease. However, waiting until 60 days after planting became a problem in 2023 when early-season conditions strongly favored disease development and initiating a fungicide program earlier was essential for most peanut farmers and would have helped them as well. 

Chat with the best

I am a part of a chat group with some of the best row crop farmers in my area. I recently asked them to share with me which recommendations I make that they ignore, or at least that they disagree with. In general, there was consensus that I give too much credit to some nematicides for use on peanuts and cotton and that I suggest parity between products where, in their minds, such parity does not exist.  

Here the growers are more cautious and choose more aggressive, and sometimes more costly, products simply because they fear damage from root-knot nematodes and would rather pay to be more aggressive than to risk increased loss with other products, no matter what I recommend. 

In the same chat group, one of the growers noted with sarcasm, “the Atta-Boy award goes to Bob for creating worries in an otherwise easy to grow crop” in reference to my recommendation for fungicide use in corn to protect against southern rust.   

Without question, not every corn grower in the Southeast needs a fungicide on his or her corn crop, but after the recent winds and subsequent lodging from tropical storm Debby, there are some who wish they had fought southern rust harder this year. And there is a least one cotton grower in Southwest Georgia who wishes he had fought nematodes harder too, according to Extension recommendations. 

Kemerait is a University of Georgia Extension plant pathologist.