October 16, 2020
Peanut harvest is in full swing near Wellman, Texas, on Glen, Aaron and Kirk Martin's farms. Glen and Aaron are the 2020 Farm Press Peanut Efficiency winners for the Southwest.
Farm Press caught up with Glen and Aaron on a blustery West Texas day, as the peanut digger was making its way through one of their fields trying to get peanuts dug before a cold front hit. It was 98 degrees that day and expected to drop to 38 degrees by the next evening.
While 2020 has packed a punch from drought and failed dryland acres to COVID and low commodity prices, the Martins, who have only received 5 inches of rain since January 1, are happy with the quality of their irrigated peanuts.
"The peanuts look decent, considering what they've been through and the little irrigation we have to work with," Aaron says.
Watch the digger run and learn more about the Martin's peanut operation.
See, Terry County farmers harvest rainwater along with crops
About the Author(s)
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 that have to be 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 a 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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