Question:

I’m seeking advice this morning. I’m breaking or some would say bottom plowing all of my peanut land this year. I’m thinking about applying a 0-0-41 fertilizer before planting. In the past I’ve used Prowl incorporated in the soil. I really don’t like Prowl. Do you have any recommendations on a different program? At the peanut meeting you mentioned that bedding the land seems to have better results, I’ve always Ripped & Bedded but with fuel prices and the breaking, what are your thoughts? I had a terrible peanut crop last year on account of the weather and I’m hoping for better results this year. I’ll do what is necessary to try to achieve this goal. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Jordan:

I'd say the only value I know of for breaking land (bottom plow, moldboard plow, flushing where I came from) is to bury weed seed or minimize risk from burrower bug. If you can handle your weeds well enough with herbicides, and if you have not had burrower bug issues (seg 2 damage caused by this insect), I'd suggest not spending the money and effort on breaking land. We have about 5% of growers break land, and that has been the case for the past 20 years. With our fungicides and in most cases our herbicides, I don't think we gain from that operation. We did work years ago comparing tillage systems, and there was no advantage of breaking land versus chisel plow or no primary tillage (simply disking and field cultivating.) I think you can save a lot of money by not breaking land and you will get to the same place from a yield perspective. If you have not had burrower bug (you would only know this if the official grading showed it), that is another reason to not break land.

I do think bedding matters. Our recent trial data seem to be very clear on that. If you have perfect sandy soils across all acres and within fields, you can get away with strip till and planting flat. But the beds do keep us from losing more pods during digging (less soil going through the digger means less pod loss - you often have to set the digger deeper when in flat ground because it's not all perfectly flat.) Our work shows that ripping might not help, but bedding or ripping and bedding is a key in my view. I'd run a bedder or ripper bedder before I would break land (bottom plow.)

There were plenty of good farmers like you that got hit with terrible weather. I drove through your county quite often and it was tough. Six weeks of drought in August-September is almost impossible to overcome. Hoping for about four inches of rain each month - or at least two. 

The reason I would consider keeping Prowl in the program (preplant incorporated prior to bedding) is because if it is dry after you plant, you at least have some herbicide in the soil to suppress weeds, especially pigweeds. Dual Magnum plus Valor is what I would do right after the planter (PRE) and then paraquat plus another Group 15 and Basagran and then a Cadre/Ultra Blazer program (and a clethodim product for grass when needed.) I'd prefer Dual Magnum PRE compared with Prowl PRE. Prowl incorporated can work well but it depends on how uniform it is incorporated. One pass with a disk before bedding is going to be inconsistent in performance. 

If you are still using imidacloprid in the seed furrow, I'd be ready to apply Hemi plus surfactant about 2 weeks after the peanuts emerge. Both imidacloprid and acephate have numerous places in the state where resistance exists in thrips to these insecticides.

As for the 0-0-41, I suggest that you keep using that prior to planting. Disk it in and then bed. We have fields where we run low on potassium toward the end of the season.

So, I'd say:

1. avoid breaking land
2. bed (maybe not rip, but make sure you rip for corn or cotton)
3. keep the K in the program but incorporate
4. keep vines as healthy as you can going into harvest (I know you have a lot acres and can't get to some places as quickly as you would like)

Hope this helps.

Follow Up:

I forgot to mention the other reason I’m breaking the land is to remove any stumps that would damage my diggers.

Jordan:

That's a good reason and will help expose them.