Question:
I looked at three fields this morning, all on sandy land and planted around May 8th. This area has been dry. The grower noticed this issue starting to occur about 2-3 weeks ago but now the plants are very wilted and brown. The field is patchy but large areas of the field are starting to look like this. There are still some areas of the field that still look healthy. The affected plants have less pods than the healthy plants. I will attach a few photos of this to this email. Inside some of the pods the peanuts look to be molding.
They do want to wait longer in the other fields for the peanuts to mature more. They asked if they should dig the affected areas and leave everything else. Do you have an opinion on doing that? I figured it would be best to just wait and dig at one time.
Jordan:
It depends on what percent of the field is in that shape. If the healthy plants are not mature and need more time and are the primary type of plant, the grower should wait. While not ideal, the stressed plants won’t completely shed if they stay out longer. What percent is not wilting?
Follow Up:
I am not the best at guessing percentage so I took drone photos. The last 2 photos are the same field. I would say the first 2 fields are maybe 40%-50% not wilted but the last field has a lot of wilting.
