5 Things You Didnt Know About Peanut Harvesting

Peanuts are a popular crop among farms, a hot weather crop that requires specific machinery and preparations to ensure a successful harvest. While proper equipment is essential, you must know basic facts about how peanuts are grown, harvested, and stored. Here are five things you probably didn’t know about peanut harvesting:

1. Peanuts don’t grow on trees. They are grown underneath the soil, which is part of what makes peanuts such a sustainable crop. One of the benefits of them growing under the soil is that they add beneficial nitrogen to the soil and require less water than other nuts.

2. Harvesting peanuts is a two-step process. A farmer must take a digger along the peanut rows and flip the plant upside down; the peanuts then dry for a few days. Once they are dry, a shaker and picker separate the peanut pods from the rest of the plant.

3. Six states grow the majority of the peanut crop in the United States. Georgia, which grows about 53% of all U. S. peanuts, followed by Alabama, Florida, Texas, North Carolina, and South Carolina. Mississippi, Virginia, Oklahoma, Arkansas, New Mexico, Louisiana, and Missouri produce about 7% of the US peanut crop.

4. After the peanuts are harvested, farmers take their crop to buying points where they are tested, cleaned, and dried. At the buying station, peanuts are sampled and graded by the Federal-State Inspection Service to determine their value. The inspectors establish the meat content, size of pods, kernel size, moisture content, damaged kernels, and foreign material. The inspection results determine the overall quality and value of each load.

5. The shells, skins, and kernels of peanuts can be used in various non-food products such as wallboard, fireplace logs, fiber roughage for livestock feed, and even paper making. They can also be found in household products such as detergent, salves, metal polish, bleach, ink, shaving cream, soap, and so much more.

Now that you know where to start when it comes to planting and harvesting peanuts, you’re ready to visit your local SunSouth to buy your equipment. We have all the equipment you will need to have a successful planting and harvesting season.