The following is my column that will come out with the V-C Peanut News in a few weeks.

Moving into the growing season there are many decisions that need to be made. Everyone knows that timing of implementing practices is critical to success. This can range from applying lime well enough in advance to raise pH, applying gypsum early enough for it to move into the pegging zone (but not too early), and making sure you get the most out of pesticide applications. Of course, we know how important digging on time is relative to pod maturity, but that is a topic for a later date.

We have put together several management tools that can be found on our peanut extension website (peanut.ces.ncsu.edu). These are useful at different times of the year. Our peanut risk tool is designed to help growers and their advisors consider field history and the likelihood a pest will be an issue and adjust their practices so that they don’t find themselves with elevated levels of risk going into the growing season. We have rescue practices for some pests but not all of them. Tomato spotted wilt and southern corn rootworm turn out to be the pests that are impacted by field selection and decisions at planting with little to no recourse once we plant. We don’t have a chemical that controls a virus and after planting a foliar application of insecticide to suppress thrips is helpful in minimizing tomato spotted wilt but not overly effective in reducing incidence of disease that is transmitted by thrips. Tillage, planting date, in-furrow insecticide, plant population, and variety selection are inputs that are in place once we leave the field with the planter. With no chemical treatment for southern corn rootworm, when we select a field, when we decide what variety to plant, and when we plant on a certain date, we have our management strategy for this pest in place. If we have irrigation, we will use it. It often pays. But irrigation will increase risk for this pest. For these two pests, and for several others (nematodes for example,) we need to make sure we stack things in our favor before we select a field and plant peanuts.

The same is true for some of our fertility inputs. Hopefully, soil pH is at least 6.0 across the field, and hopefully zinc levels are low or pH is high enough to overcome some of the hot spots we might experience. Once we plant, we have what we have. Equally important is making sure peanuts can fix their own nitrogen. Making sure we have some insurance in case application in the seed furrow does not happen is important. Applying inoculant in the seed furrow and then placing a dry inoculant in with the seed can make a substantial difference, especially in new ground fields or fields with long rotations out of peanuts. Once again, we are stacking things in our favor.

Early in the season, after we get a stand of peanuts, controlling weeds and suppressing thrips are important practices. The earlier we plant the longer the window is for dealing with thrips. Not only are thrips populations higher in late April and early May than late May and June, but peanuts also often emerge more slowly and take a while to grow when planted on the early side. This creates a good opportunity for thrips to feed on peanuts for a prolonged period in a way that impacts yield. We can minimize the impact. We just need to be timely with foliar sprays regardless of what we use in the seed furrow at planting.

Weeds are similar during this time of the season. We need to make sure peanut fields have overlapping residual herbicides applied early in the season so that yield is not affected by weed interference. There are a lot of options to pick from. Investment in herbicides early in the season pays significant dividends rather than spending money later in the season trying to catch up.

This leads me to a tool that can be used in real time during the season to manage weeds. Greg Buol, a person in our department on campus, has been instrumental in helping us develop decision tools that can help us. The Herbicide Selection Tool can be found on the NC State Extension peanut website. With a series of clicks on the tool, you should be able to get a herbicide recommendation for the weeds you have. The recommendation is the same one you might develop using our herbicide rating tables from 2025 Peanut Information or the 2025 NC Agricultural Chemicals Manual. We hope this gets you to a recommendation quickly. Once you select the herbicide option, make sure you click on the option for comments on use of the herbicide or combination of herbicides. Keep in mind all the tool is doing is getting you to the option. Your next step is looking at the product label or the production guides for peanuts we have for specifics on how to use the herbicide(s). Factors such as adjuvants, timing of application, weed size, rate, etc. are not found on the Herbicide Selection Tool. We recently surveyed NC State Extension agents on use of the tool, and naturally they wanted more detail than we can give in a tool like this. The more we add, the more challenging it gets to use the tool and keep it updated.

I hope the season starts well for you. We all need a good year.