THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, September 28, 1995 TAG: 9509270233
SECTION: SUFFOLK SUN PAGE: 09 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JODY R. SNIDER, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 63 lines
In an emergency move last month to help area peanut farmers save their crops from spider mites, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Virginia Department of Agriculture allowed them to use a pesticide still being evaluated for safety.
Mother Nature stepped in, too, with rain.
But neither Capture 2EC, the pesticide, nor the rain will be enough to salvage much of the peanut crop. Yields this year are expected to drop from 3,100 pounds per acre last year to 2,300 pounds or less per acre this year, state experts say.
The emergency approval of Capture, which is being used on cotton and field corn but is not yet approved for food crops, came just in time to save part of Richard Byrum's peanut acreage in Suffolk and Isle of Wight County.
Spider mites infesting 125 of his 375 acres disappeared after Capture was applied, and the fields started to ``green up.''
However, signs of infestation showed with more dry weather. The mites - tiny, spiderlike insects about the size of a pinhead - thrive in hot, dry weather. They suck the life from peanut plants, eventually leaving them brown and withered.
Carl Harmon, vice president of Dixie Guano Inc. in Windsor, said he sold 150 gallons of Capture during the allowed spraying period, Aug. 28 to Sept. 11. ``That's equivalent to 3,750 acres,'' he said. ``. . . It has salvaged the crop to some degree.''
D. Ames Herbert, a Tidewater Agricultural Extension Center expert on insects and other pests, said about one-half the 58,000 acres of peanuts in Suffolk and Isle of Wight and Southampton counties have been affected by drought and mites.
Emergency use of Capture on peanuts also was granted during the 1993 drought.
Herbert said approval was sought this summer after most farmers had made the limited two applications of Comite, an approved pesticide for mites.
``The mites that you don't kill with Comite lay eggs, and the whole process starts again,'' he said, or additional mites blow into the fields.
Comite and a chemical called Karate are the only two pesticides currently approved to fight mites in peanuts. Herbert said the EPA would not have granted emergency use if Capture had not been close to federal approval.
Harmon said another benefit of Capture is that it also will stop some worm infestations. However, it is costly - about $18 per acre. For a farmer with 250 acres of peanuts, that's $4,500 for one application.
``It's an economic decision,'' he said. ``At what point do you stop spending money on a crop that's already below its potential?''
As for farmer Richard Byrum, he's glad he sprayed. ``If you let the mites eat the peanuts,'' he said, ``you don't have a chance.''
But even after the recent rains came, he was not optimistic. Mites were still in his fields, still doing damage.
``It's too late to worry in most cases,'' he said. ``Time has run out for peanuts.'' ILLUSTRATION: Staff photo by JOHN H. SHEALLY II
Richard Byrum checks his peanut plants for signs of spider mites.
by CNB