goobers

yotehunter57

New member
For the first time ever, some farmers here planted peanuts as one of their cash crops.

For years it was soybeans, soybeans, soybeans, with a little milo mixed in.
Then in the mid to late 70s the rice allotment opened up and every one started growing rice.
It was pretty much rice and soybeans up until around 2000 when they tried corn here.

Well fast forward until this year, when after much propositioning 3 farmers decided to try peanuts after the peanut shortage last year.

For now harvest time has just started, but if things go anywhere close to how they have started, they re looking at making MORE $ per acre than ever before.
Well that holds true for the 2 farmers who took care of their peanuts and kept them clean from grass and weeds

Now for my story! The farmer across the road from me left 1 row when they started digging the peanuts. So now I have been pulling the peanuts he left (wih his permission) and now have peanuts out the WAZOO.

Shayne
 
I see a lot of crow hunting video's in and around peanut fields... could that be an opportunity for you?
 
My Dad used to grow a row or two of peanuts in the garden just for fun.They sure smelled good and were good,when he roasted them.I never did try to grow any.
 
My grandparents lived in Des ARC AR. They growed peanuts every year and would always give us some for Christmas. Best part was sitting on my grandfathers lap, roasting them on a pot belly stove back in the 1950es
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Gene'o
 
Hey Gene'o, we're in Griffithville, 17 miles north of Des Arc.

They started "combine'ing" the peanuts yesterday, and it was the damndest thing I've ever seen. The combines they are using are pull types which is not to strange. But if you've never seen one work, there is lots of dirt even on "clean" peanuts and the combines try to blow the dirt straight up, out of the combine. The result is a dust cloud that can be seen for miles.
One of the malor up-sides of peanuts is, they look like even without irrigation, they will be more profitable than rice, which takes untold amounts of water. The man who farms in front of my house planted anound 250 acres of peanuts this year. With the production numbers he's seeing, even this early in the harvest, he was ordering more equipment for next year, when he plans on going to between 600 and 800 acres of goobers.
The downside is that they need to be kept as weed and grass free as possible to make the digging as effecient as possible. And the combining is a slow time consuming process.

Shayne
 
Yeah the dryer the better. It's really in the digging where the dryness of the dirt makes a difference. If it's to damp, the dirt sticking to the roots and peanuts will dry as hard as concrete, and not come off very easy. If the ground is dryer, the dirt will crumble off when digging and flipping the peanuts over.
So far, it appears that ground with a pretty decent slope is better for goobers than really flat fields.

It takes a special "combine" made just for peanuts. It pulls in the vines and all just like a round hay baler. It TRIES to blow the dirt out straight up, out of the back of the combine. Even on "clean" peanuts, the dust cloud coming out and off the combine is unreal.

With the farmers here experimenting with peanuts, they bought the cheaper PULL TYPE combines which is pulled through the field by a tractor

I got recruited by my neighbor yesterday to run the "grain buggy" for him as he was short on help.
For never even seeing peanuts harvested, I had a ball, but am paying this morning for being bounced all over by the tractor.

GC, I'm waiting on the crows to find the peanuts. There's 90 acres within 1/2 mile of my front door so it would be very handy.

Shayne
 
Do they have a machine to pull the peanuts and let them dry in the sun or does the combine pull and clean them in one operation?How does the pulling work without leaving a lot of peanuts in the ground? Thanks for answering am interested as I am still a farmer at heart am have not seen this done.
 
They have a digger that digs and inverts the peanuts o they get aired out. It has blades that slide under the peanuts. Then chains pick up the whole vine, walks it up also shaking some of the dirt off, to some big angled wheels that turn the vines over and flip them out the back, in windrows.

Then there is a "shaker-fluffer" that is ran over the peanut vines to "fluff" the vines so thev also dry.

Then, anywhere from 3-10 days later (depending on moisture) the combine comes into play. It picks up the vines like a round hay-baler, and feeds then into the combine which strips the peanuts off the vines and blows most of the dirt off the peanuts.
The good peanuts go ito the hopper and the vines, dirt and other trash goes out the back just like any other combine.

The combine empties the peanuts into the grain buggy on a belt instead of an auger.
I'm guessing an auger would crush the peanut hull.

The grain buggy also has no auger, but instead has hydraulic cylinders that pick up the whole grain hopper, and tips it over and dumps the whole load into the trailers. It is a hoot to watch and operate.

Shayne
 
Thanks for explaining the process.After the peanuts are combined are they taken to market or do they go to a bin with a dryer or what.I know I am asking a lot of questions but I always wondered how it is done.
 
I'm not sure, but i'm guessing they will go in bins for final drying.

I have been told that they are run through a grader, and graded according to size. With the smallest going for penut butter, and the absolute biggest going to steakhouses that provide them in buckets.

These are also some big peanuts, with lots being almost as big as cashews.

There are so many uses for peanuts.
Peanut butter
Shelled and roasted
Roasted in the shell
Raw in the shell
Peanut oil

And probably many more uses that I either can't remember or am not aware of.


The humidity was way high yesterday and the combine couldn't strip the peanuts off the vine, so I rode around with the farmer. He's only harvested around 70 acres at the most, and has probably over 350 to go.

Taking in 3 rows at a time, at 1.5 mph it is super slow going and will take a while.

Shayne
 
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