Browse Peanuts Stories - Page 2

Using proven production practices to fight disease in the field, Georgia farmers produce half the peanuts grown in the U.S. each year. Modern peanut varieties carry few genetic defenses against some of the more devastating diseases, so peanut farmers carefully consider when to plant, whether to irrigate and when to apply fungicide and insecticide to keep those diseases from infecting the plant.

When University of Georgia peanut pathologist Bob Kemerait does something, he does it wholeheartedly. A passionate advocate for producers both near his academic home at the University of Georgia Tifton campus and around the world, Kemerait describes himself as “a field guy,” most comfortable among the rows detecting, diagnosing and addressing the myriad diseases and pests that threaten Georgia’s second-largest row crop.

All over the world, farmers are aging and young people are moving to more urban areas for economic opportunities. Leaders wonder what factors push young people to abandon agriculture and whether technology or other tools can make farming a more attractive option for the next generation. Next week, researchers from the University of Georgia and Virginia Tech will present early findings from research exploring those questions in Senegal, where a team surveyed more than 1,000 peanut-growing households to explore challenges among peanut producers and learn the main reasons why young people turn away from agriculture.

A decade ago, University of Georgia plant scientists David and Soraya Bertioli were living and working in Brazil when they began to wonder about peanut plants they encountered in different corners of the world with an astounding ability to withstand fungal diseases without the use of fungicides. The Bertiolis wondered if these different plants might all have something in common. Did they owe their natural resistance to a single genetic source?

The wild relatives of modern peanut plants have the ability to withstand disease in ways that modern peanut plants can’t. The genetic diversity of these wild relatives means that they can shrug off the diseases that kill farmers’ peanut crops, but they also produce tiny nuts that are difficult to harvest because they burrow deep in the soil.

J. Frank McGill, affectionally known throughout the Georgia agricultural community as “Mr. Peanut,” passed away surrounded by family on March 3 at age 95 in Tifton, Georgia.

University of Georgia faculty will share the latest research on cotton, soybeans, corn and other southeast Georgia crops during the annual Southeast Georgia Research and Education Center Field Day held online Aug. 12.

Jeffrey Dorfman, the state fiscal economist for Georgia and a professor at the University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences (CAES), will serve as the keynote speaker for four of the five locations during the 2020 Georgia Ag Forecast seminar series set for Jan. 21 through Jan. 31.

Peanut harvest season in Sylvester, Georgia, is more than just farmers digging up the fruits of their labor. It’s a time of celebration for agriculture, the sector that drives the economic footprint in this rural community.

University of Georgia President Jere W. Morehead and Agriculture Commissioner of Georgia Gary Black were part of an annual farm tour that visited southeast Georgia on Wednesday, Oct. 2 to learn about the diverse makeup of the state’s agricultural industry.