Posted September 24, 2024 | By: Nutrien Ag Solutions

Eric Lee, a Sales Agronomist with Nutrien Ag Solutions joins Agronomy for your Acres to talk about the pest and disease pressure growers in Georgia are facing this year.

Episode Transcript:

Hello, everyone, and thanks for joining us here for This Week in Agribusiness. I'm Mike Pearson. I had the chance to travel a few miles this past week and while I was on the roads across the Northern Corn Belt, I saw many combines out harvesting in both corn and soybean fields.

What I did not see were any peanut harvesters, but I'm told a thousand miles to the Southeast they are or will very well soon be getting ready to run. Joining us this week to talk about it is Eric Lee. He's a Sales Agronomist with Nutrien Ag Solutions and he joins us now for Agronomy for your Acres. Eric, thanks for talking with us.

Absolutely, Mike. Happy to be here. Let's take a look. What factors are you watching here as peanut growers in Georgia prepare to get into harvest? Really, the main thing right now is going to be tropical storm or tropical depression that's starting to form in the Gulf that can really push us behind and cause some difficulties when it comes to harvest.

Absolutely. A lot of rain coming down all at once could be some trouble. Let's talk about trouble, Eric. Have you had any pest or disease pressure down in Georgia for your growers this year? We have. We've had a lot of disease this year. We've had a strange year as far as a wet to dry and now we're somewhat wet again.

So that can kind of breed a lot of disease. Two main diseases, white mold that we suffered a lot during the dry and hot phase and now we're kind of the cool wet. And so we're starting to see a lot of leaf spot diseases. Now, is there anything you can do at this point in the game to address that leaf spot or do you just let it go to harvest?

Yeah, we can. We can kind of hit the cruise button right now. We can spend the least amount of money with some cheap fungicides, but really, we're just cruising to the end right now. All right. Well, let's think about that harvest challenges that could be coming up. Are there any specific issues that you're advising growers to be prepared for this harvest season?

Yeah, like I stated earlier, mainly just the tropical storm and tropical depression. That's going to be really the main issue we have going forward. So a lot of guys are scrambling right now that they've dug peanuts and they're sitting on top of the ground. So they're scrambling, trying to get those picked while they can while we have some nice weather. You know, and that makes sense.

Eric, I'm not terribly familiar with peanut production. That field behind you, those look bright and green. Are they going to be headed for harvest shortly? Yeah, actually, this field will probably be dug in the next 10 days. And once the peanuts are inverted, the peanuts are exposed to the elements and the vines will go through a drying period before it goes through the peanut combine.

And the peanuts and the vines are separated and the vines are shot out of the back of the harvester, and we can actually start to bale some of the peanut hay to feed cows later in the year. All right. Now, Eric, I understand you've been working with that field that's behind you. Can you give us any more details? It's pretty neat.

Neat topic, isn't it? Yeah. So this is actually a Dyna-Gro 913 Peanut, the first of its kind. So this is a production acre. So all of the seeds, all the harvesting that's done here will actually be used going into 25 for more production acres. So we're looking to ramp up the seed and hopefully going into 26, we'll have plenty for everybody around.

That makes sense. Eric, any other advice for growers heading into that 2026 season? Yeah, just kind of 2025 really. It's going to be an interesting year. We've got a lot of challenges on the farm and a lot of financial challenges. So just kind of cutting back where we can cut back and really going to have to dive in into our financials to figure it out where we can, you know, pick up a few dollars here and there.

It's all going to come down to those base hits, right. Getting little wins to keep in business. Eric, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us. We appreciate your insight on the peanut industry there in Georgia. Absolutely. Thanks for having me. That's Eric Lee, Sales Agronomist with Nutrien Ag Solutions. And you can learn more at NutrienAgSolutions.com.