Peanut acres, yield, and value comparatively steady in 2022

Drought, different commodity value hikes, and better enter prices led to a middling peanut crop in Arkansas throughout the 2022 rising season.

Arkansas farmers grew about 2,000 fewer acres of peanuts in 2022 in comparison with 2021. The November forecast from the US Division of Agriculture’s Nationwide Agricultural Statistics Service estimated harvested acres at 32,000 acres within the state.

“This was resulting from good soybean and cotton costs and extra acres in Missouri,” Travis Faske, extension pathologist for the College of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture. “General, the south-central area had about 7,000 fewer acres than in 2021, in response to the U.S. Division of Agriculture’s Farm Service Company.”

A months-long drought throughout the early and mid-summer had an affect on the legume crop that was reintroduced in Arkansas a dozen years in the past.

“The new summer season circumstances suppressed flowering and thus suppressed the pod set for a number of weeks creating two distinct crops: early and late,” Faske mentioned.

The early-late conundrum created “a problem for farmers to attend till the late crop matures or harvest the early one and take a success on yield and grade,” he mentioned. “As anticipated, grades and yield have been decrease initially of harvest in comparison with the tip.”

Then again, dry circumstances throughout harvest enabled one of many quickest harvests lately with practically 90% of the crop harvested by the tip of October,” Faske mentioned.

One other plus to the dry climate was that illness stress was low from the standard suspects — tomato noticed wilt virus and verticillium wilt, and common for southern and sclerotinia blight.

“Situations have been good for planting with no main points, possibly some beginning too early,” Faske mentioned.

Costs have been about the identical as 2021, “roughly $500 per ton for the primary ton. People who develop a excessive oleic acid cultivar get somewhat extra per pound,” he mentioned.

Faske mentioned 2022, was a “barely higher than common 12 months with yield estimates at 5,000 kilos per acre. After all, there are at all times these tales of 6,900 kilos per acre discipline common.”

Peanut acreage in Arkansas has fluctuated over the previous decade, dipping from about 18,000 acres in 2012 to about 10,000 acres in 2014, then steadily climbing since. In Arkansas, the main peanut counties embrace Mississippi and Craighead counties, with smaller acreages in Greene, Lee, St. Francis and different counties within the Delta area.

Arkansas stays at some of the excessive ranges to develop peanuts. The crop wants about 5 months of regular, comparatively scorching climate to flourish. It will probably flip chilly within the Delta throughout October and that may be an issue.

Excessive peanut quantity states equivalent to Texas, Georgia, and Oklahoma have been hit with illness, drought, and a scarcity of irrigation lately which has compelled a number of peanut firms to search for different states to develop the crop.