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Black-eyed peas require gentle harvest

The type of combine and header used to harvest peas makes a difference.

Shelley E. Huguley, Editor

October 9, 2020

When Joe McFerrin and Shane and Shelley Berry decided to produce black-eyed peas in place of corn on the drought-ridden Texas Plains, they had hoped to dust off their header and use the combine they've got to harvest them.

But they quickly learned that their corn special combine was too aggressive and splitting the peas."We don't get paid on splits," McFerrin says. So, they hired custom harvester and black-eyed pea producer, Kody Carson, Olton, to combine them instead. 

Crop Consultant Randy Redinger, Ag Producers Co-op, makes combine and harvest recommendations, along with talking about the 'bright side' of drought for black-eyed peas.

Watch to learn more!

To learn more about the McFerrin/Berry operation and black-eyed peas, click on the following links:

Read more about:

Black eyed Peas

About the Author(s)

Shelley E. Huguley

Editor, Southwest Farm Press

Shelley Huguley has been involved in agriculture for the last 25 years. She began her career in agricultural communications at the Texas Forest Service West Texas Nursery in Lubbock, where she developed and produced the Windbreak Quarterly, a newspaper about windbreak trees and their benefit to wildlife, production agriculture and livestock operations. While with the Forest Service she also served as an information officer and team leader on fires during the 1998 fire season and later produced the Firebrands newsletter that was distributed quarterly throughout Texas to Volunteer Fire Departments. Her most personal involvement in agriculture also came in 1998, when she married the love of her life and cotton farmer Preston Huguley of Olton, Texas. As a farmwife, she knows first-hand the ups and downs of farming, the endless decisions made each season based on “if” it rains, “if” the drought continues, “if” the market holds. She is the bookkeeper for their family farming operation and cherishes moments on the farm such as taking harvest meals to the field or starting a sprinkler in the summer with the whole family lending a hand. Shelley has also freelanced for agricultural companies such as Olton CO-OP Gin, producing the newsletter Cotton Connections while also designing marketing materials to promote the gin. She has published articles in agricultural publications such as Southwest Farm Press while also volunteering her marketing and writing skills to non-profit organizations such as Refuge Services, an equine-assisted therapy group in Lubbock. She and her husband reside in Olton with their three children Breely, Brennon and HalleeKate.

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