North Carolina peanut specialist Dr. David Jordan is ringing some warning bells as peanut farmers prepare for the new crop year.

Speaking before the fall meeting of the North Carolina Agricultural Consultants Association in Raleigh Nov. 30, Jordan highlighted medium to long-term challenges facing the peanut industry as well as challenges that could impact crop management in 2018.

Among Jordan’s concerns are the future availability and effectiveness of crop protection products, inadequate rotations and the ability to harvest the crop in a timely manner. Still, Jordan, is optimistic about the future of North Carolina peanuts, particularly due to the release of Bailey II, a new high-oleic variety that has out yielded its forerunner, the very popular Bailey, in initial trials.

The year 2017 was one of the best years ever in terms of peanuts yields and quality across North Carolina. This was much welcome news after disappointing crops in both 2015 and 2016 due mainly to dry weather during the summer and wet weather at harvest.

And while the bumper crop was certainly welcome, Jordan said harvesting the crop in a timely way was a challenge in 2017. Even more challenging were years such as 2015 and 2016 when the weather didn’t cooperate.

“One of my biggest concerns is folks almost have to have a perfect fall to get all of their peanuts dug and harvested. This year we had almost perfect conditions, but it took almost the whole fall to get the crop in,” Jordan told the consultants.

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“Back in 2015 and 2016, when we didn’t have perfect conditions, we got in trouble in a lot of fields. We couldn’t get some of the crop out in time and if you didn’t have good leaf spot control, you were in big trouble,” he added.

Jordan also continues to emphasize the importance of proper rotations. By and large, most North Carolina farmers do a good job maintaining their rotations, but Jordan says there are exceptions.

“We do have people in certain parts of the state, particularly in the central coastal plan area, where peanuts are really good to them financially and they have gotten a little bit sloppy in their rotations,” Jordan said. “Instead of three or four or five years between peanut crops, I know some folks where they will have peanuts behind peanuts or peanuts a year or two later. That eventually catches up with you from a yield standpoint, in particular disease pressure. I’m a little bit worried that we’re getting sloppy with our rotations.”

Jordan is also concerned about the future availability of crop protection products, particularly as the U.S peanut industry works to build its market share in Europe.

“If we go back a couple of years ago, it seemed like we had good tools for just about every problem we had. You might spend more money that you wanted to, but we had good tools. Those have been chipped away a little bit,” Jordan said.

Even though a number of good products are registered in the U.S. by the Environmental Protection Agency, Jordan says peanut shellers have to adjust to the view of pesticide residues as they expand sales in Europe and other markets.

“One of the concerns over time is we could be told it doesn’t matter if it is registered in the U.S when we are trying to capture international markets. We simply can’t segregate peanuts, especially based on pesticide use. To capture those markets, which is important to farmers as well, may prevent use of XYZ products even though they are registered for use in peanut in the U.S.,’” Jordan said.

Still, Jordan is optimistic for North Carolina peanuts. “Our average yield should be well over two  tons and we will have good quality peanuts. Weather conditions in the fall helped with efficient digging and harvesting and we should have bright shiny hulls for the in-shell trade," he said.

“The  transition to Sullivan from Bailey gives us added quality through prolonged shelf-life due to the high-oleic trait in Sullivan (and Wynne) and ultimately all Virginia market types on the market will carry the high-oleic trait.  And demand for peanuts continues to grow,” he noted.

In his comments to the crop consultants, Jordan highlighted a list of  keys for success for North Carolina peanut farmers, including  “establish and maintain good rotations, take advantage of the improved genetics coming out of NC State’s breeding program, keep peanuts on suitable soils for this crop, be timely with pest control practices, and make sure your acreage and harvest capacity match as well as possible.” 

“With these practices in place and good weather, peanuts continue to have a strong role in many of the cropping systems we have in the Virginia-Carolina region,” Jordan emphasized.