THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, October 1, 1996 TAG: 9610010256
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LINDA MCNATT, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: SUFFOLK LENGTH: 79 lines
Local peanut farmers usually call the activity they're involved in this time of year harvesting the crops.
This year, they're calling it a salvage operation.
The general rule is that the root crop must be out of the ground before the first frost, not likely to hit Hampton Roads until late October.
But farmers are digging peanuts earlier this year to save the crop from diseases that have been sucking the life from vines for the past several months.
Sclerotinia blight and CBR, or black rot, both are fed by moisture and cool temperatures. This summer of above average rainfall and cooler than usual days and nights have created a perfect environment.
``Sclerotinia is widespread,'' Suffolk farmer Brian Rountree said, as he looked over browning vines in a 65-acre peanut field on Box Elder Road. ``The rot is isolated, but it's here. Right now, we've just got to get them out of the ground as quick as we can to salvage the crop.''
The spring growing season started out ``excellent,'' said Rountree, who farms 340 acres of peanuts with his father, Wilbur Rountree, in the Holland section of the city. But, as the season continued, conditions for the diseases improved.
Rainfall during the growing season hasn't been that much above average, said Betty Gray, a lab technician at Virginia Tech's Tidewater Agricultural Research and Extension Center. But with Hurricane Bertha in July came a downpour of 9.12 inches of rain for the month, well above the average of 5.75 inches.
That's when sclerotina and CBR got started.
Rainfall in August was just a little below normal, but temperatures have remained unusually cool. Gray called it the ``missing 90s.''
``Last summer, we had 20 straight days when it never went below 90 degrees,'' Gray said.
While uncomfortable for humans, the hot, sunny days are exactly what peanuts need. The cooler weather prevented the nuts from reaching maturity, said Dr. Charles Swann, an extension specialist at the research center.
Farmers in Southampton County started digging peanuts several weeks ago to get the crop out of diseased fields, extension agent Wes Alexander said.
Farmers in Surry County, where the diseases are scattered, started digging in earnest last week, as did farmers in Isle of Wight County. Surry and Isle of Wight typically have sandier soil than Suffolk, and the rolling topography of the land in Surry allows for some surface runoff.
``I think we're going to end up with a respectable crop,'' Isle of Wight Extension agent Robert D. Goerger said. ``Some fields are diseased; some look all right. Considering the weather we've had, I feel encouraged.''
Suffolk may have been struck the hardest, Swann said, and the diseases are definitely more widespread in the southeastern corner of Virginia, which includes western Tidewater.
The diseases attack the vines and pegs (stems that attach the nuts below ground to the vines above ground), Swann said. In badly diseased fields, the peanut pods will be lost in the digging process.
Or, in the case of several hills of vines in Rountree's fields, the pods will appear normal size, but the nuts inside will be immature, much smaller than usual.
Peanuts in Virginia represent an $80 million crop. Because of changes in federal agriculture policy that include the peanut program, this year's crop of about 75,600 acres, is the lowest since 1909, Swann said.
Growing conditions and weather haven't helped the outlook.
As Rountree stooped in the middle of a field dotted with dying plants, he pulled up a handful of vines, examined the pods and shelled a couple of nuts.
``I'm surprised they look as good as they do,'' he said. ``But they ought to be a whole lot bigger than this by now.''
Until the harvest is finished and the peanuts are sold, income from the 1996 crop will be hard to predict, Swann said. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by John Sheally/The Virginian-Pilot
Above: Brian Roundtree checks the size of peanuts in a Roundtree
Farms Field in Suffolk.
Left: Peanuts being harvested by Roundtree Farms are loaded in a
hopper after being picked.
KEYWORDS: PEANUTS by CNB