Recent Posts

  • It is always something…this week in the world of peanut entomology that something is cutworms. We see cutworm injury to peanut foliage every year in the month of June, and in most cases these infestations are nothing more than curiosities. This year scouts, agents, and growers are finding and reporting much higher than usual populations…

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  • Lesser cornstalk borer (LCB) is the most destructive insect pest of peanut in the Southeast, and it thrives in hot, dry conditions. It doesn’t get a whole lot hotter or drier in South Georgia than it has been the last couple weeks, and reports of LCB infestations in peanuts have predictably started to arrive. What…

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  • Over the years several folks have asked why there is a difference in the recommended rate of acephate for cotton (3 oz/acre) and peanut (6-12 oz/acre). I applied acephate (97) at 3, 6, or 12 oz/acre to peanut on 10 May (16 days after planting). The pictures below were taken on 21 May. A =…

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  • Trap captures of adult tobacco thrips increased right on schedule last week at four of our six monitoring locations. The NCSU thrips model predicts peak dispersal will occur around 15 May in the Tifton, area. Thrips dispersal will not end all at once following the peak, and growers should be aware that the risk of…

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  • Peanuts are being planted, tobacco thrips are moving, and there is nothing unusual about either of those things this time of year in Georgia. Our thrips traps are picking up numbers that I would describe as typical for late April. Growers should remember that peanuts planted prior to 10 May are at increased risk for…

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  • 2019 Thrips Preview

    Every spring I post an article on this blog about early season thrips management in peanut. The most important difference between 2019 and the previous five years is probably the economic situation of Georgia’s farmers after hurricane Michael and the almost continuous rain that fell though the 2018 harvest season. Perhaps in 2019 more than…

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  • Very few things are as frustrating as delivering 5000+ pound per acre peanuts to the buying point and having them grade “Seg 2” because of insect injury, and when it happens there are usually a lot of questions. What caused it? Why did it happen? When did it happen? Could we have done something to…

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  • Conditions continue to be favorable for southern corn rootworm (SCR) development across much of Georgia’s 2018 peanut acreage. SCR is a pest that requires moist soil conditions, and we typically see rootworm infestations in fields with heavy soils and center pivot irrigation. The abundant rainfall in many areas this year means that we could see…

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  • Insect activity is beginning to pick up in some of our Georgia peanut fields, and now is a really good time for growers who may not have a consultant or scout to get out and walk the crop. I have seen a mixed bag of caterpillars in my research plots and in commercial fields this…

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  • Insect pressure in Georgia’s 2018 peanut crop has been as low as I have seen since 2013. Several calls have come in over the last two weeks with folks asking what they are missing because it all just seems a little too quiet in the peanut patch. As we move through the third week of…

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