What is in this article?:
- Joe D. White: Peanut Profitability winner for Southwest Region
- Peanut Program
- Production Battle
- Rotation Program
- They are keeping a close watch on peanut fields this spring and are hoping reduced hog numbers will mean less pressure.
- The Whites say peanuts have been the most consistent crop they grow for profit. “Planting is a little more difficult,” he says. “And harvest is slow. We have to remember that a peanut plant is a vegetable, and we have to be timely with it.”
GAYLE AND JOE. D WHITE, Tillman County, Okla., take their four-wheeler on a crop inspection tour on their peanut, cotton and grain farm near Frederick, Okla.
To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven. —Ecclesiastes 3:1
Farming is all about timing, says Joe D. White, Tillman County, Okla., peanut, cotton and grain farmer.
For him, planting on time, irrigating on time, and spraying, plowing and harvesting on time often mean the difference between success or failure of a crop.
It’s especially important in peanuts, he says.
“We have to plant them at the right time, and we have to get rain at the right time. Then we have to dig and combine at the right time.”
And in-season, he’s conscientious about applying fungicides, herbicides and, if necessary, insecticides on time. Missing a critical disease treatment by just a few days, he says, can be devastating. He also further risks loss with a delay in digging or combining.
“We must be diligent,” says White’s wife, Gayle.
Their attention to detail, even through one of the worst production years they’ve ever faced, earned White this year’s Peanut Profitability Award for the Southwest region.
