Harvest Guidebook
Dirty Peanuts
M
embers of the Mississippi Peanut Growers Association heard a sobering message on the quality of the peanuts they deliver during the association’s annual meeting held earlier this year. “There has been too much dirt from truckloads of peanuts coming from some areas across the state,” says Malcolm Broome, executive director of the Mississippi Peanut Growers Association. “We need to reduce the amount of dirt and foreign material on our peanuts, and we need to come up with a plan to see what we can do about this problem.” Both peanut growers and peanut buyers blamed dry weather during the harvest season for much of the problems with dirty peanuts. Removing the dirt from peanuts is both a challenge and an opportunity, according to David Glidewell, vice president for procurement with Golden Peanut and Tree Nuts. “If you grow peanuts for us, we thank you for your business,” Glidewell says. “Together we sustain life with your production, and with that, comes great
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responsibility. We need to deliver a quality product.” Glidewell says the dirt problem with Mississippi peanuts is something his firm has struggled with each year. “It impacts shellers and growers,” he says. “The shellers must deal with clods of dirt, and the shellers are paying for dirt because the cleaners won’t take out the dirt. This results in quality issues in the warehouse.” Buying points may clean peanuts two or three times, but each time they handle peanuts, they increase the number of loose shelled kernels (LSKs), and that is a loss to the producer and the sheller, according to Glidewell. Glidewell said Mississippi growers have been producing good quality peanuts, but he has been seeking solutions for the dirt problem. Some have proposed discounts for peanuts contaminated with dirt. Farmers in the audience responded that the dirt or properties of Mississippi soils cannot be changed. According to a number of farmers with the Mississippi Peanut Growers Association, the problem with dirty peanuts resulted weather beyond their
Southeastern Peanut Farmer July/August 2018
control, mainly two years of dry conditions during the harvest season. While the dirt on peanuts may not be eliminated, there may be steps farmers could take that might minimize the problem. For instance, using dump carts that can remove dirt would be a step forward. Mississippi peanut buyers for Birdsong Peanuts have also seen dirt problems. Due to soil type, Mississippi peanuts may never be as clean as Georgia’s, but additional cleaning capacity at buying points may also help out. Buying points can currently remove small amounts of dirt, say 10 percent of each load, but removing 30 percent of dirt on peanut hulls without causing additional problems is a challenge they may not be able to achieve. Representatives from Amadas and Kelley Manufacturing Company were at the Mississippi Peanut Growers Association annual meeting, and representatives of both companies said that adjusting combine settings would do little to remove dirt. Essentially, if dirt on the peanuts goes into the combine, dirt
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