Dan Ward says the best advice he can give is to pay attention to the details. Beyond doubt, this  is a strategy that has worked for the family since Dan’s father, Wilbur Ward, produced his very first peanut crop in 1968.

“The rotations are vitally important, but the timeliness and the details are incredibly important,” says  Ward, the 2021 Farm Press Peanut Efficiency Award winner for the Upper Southeast.

Today, Ward, 57,  farms with his father  Wilbur Ward, 82, who is still involved in the operation every day. Dan’s son-in-law, Sean Morris, 28, married to Dan daughter oldest daughter Emily, is also involved in the farm every day. The family farms near Clarkton in Bladen County in southeastern North Carolina. The family has farmed in Bladen County for seven generations.

They are  farming 2,050 acres of corn, soybeans, and peanuts. This year, the family is growing 340 acres of Virginia-type peanuts as seed peanuts for Birdsong Peanut Company and North Carolina Foundation Seed Producers.

The Ward family has had a long history of stellar peanut yields. Back in the 1970s, Wilbur Ward was able to achieve remarkable yields of 5,500 pounds per acre when most North Carolina peanut farmers were making just over 2,000 pounds per acre. Wilbur credits the use of Furadan to control nematodes as the reason for the remarkable yields, but his commitment to efficiency certainly paid a role.

Throughout the years, the Wards beat the state average yield due to their commitment to efficiency. Dan Ward notes that their 10-year average is 5,300 pounds per acre. Both Wilbur and Dan Ward emphasize that job one for achieving good yields is disease management.

“The varieties we are using today are so much more disease resistant than the varieties we were using 20 years ago. We have gained a great advantage because of the disease resistance,” Dan says.