Cotton/Peanut Research Tour

Farmers visit with Dr. Tim Brenneman on a research plot looking at improving the effectiveness of fungicide application by spraying at night on the recent cotton/peanut research tour at the University of Georgia's Tifton Campus.

The tour was the first ever cotton/peanut research tour and was the result of a joint effort by the Georgia Cotton Commission and the Georgia Peanut Commission.

The Cotton Commission has done a research tour for years and invited the Peanut Commission to join the effort.

Farmers in attendance were complimentary of the effort and suggested that it should become an annual event.

I am very excited about this and other things we can do with the Cotton Commission. We have a lot of brainpower in both and working together will be good for our farmers.

Architectural Student Tour

Rodney Dawson, right, explains how a peanut combine works on a recent visit by a group of Architecture Students from Georgia Tech.

The students are participating in an architectural studio project at Georgia Tech to offer a number of design concepts for a new educational and promotion center being considered by the GPC board.

The tour of Agriculture in south Georgia was to give them a perspective of the breadth and scope of modern agriculture.

They were introduced to everything from a tractor with Auto-Steer to gnats. The tour also included a tour of the Agrirama to remind them of the heritage of agriculture in Georgia and the prospective site located along I-75 which is one of the busiest Interstate Highways in the US.

Rain

Tropical Storm Faye sent from 3 to 20 inches of rain across the Georgia peanut belt and about the same in Florida and Alabama.

I have looked at a lot of peanuts since the rain, even through he panhandle of Florida and Alabama all the way to the new production area near Mobile. As a rule peanuts look really good right now. I have been surprised that Spotted Wilt has been as light as it is and that White Mold hasn't just exploded.

I saw a few fields in Southwest Alabama that had been hammered pretty hard with Spotted Wilt but not much else that had severe infestations at this time.

Harvest is upon us and hopefully we get good harvest weather.

I think for a rule the rain benefited peanuts more than most other crops, especially crops more sensitive to the wind that accompanied the rain.

Busy Week

This has been a busy week with a lot of things happening at the Peanut Commission.

We had a meeting with Brad Day of the Chamber and the Development Authority to discuss the possible acquisition of the old state patrol location on I-75 to build a new GPC office which would become an educational and promotional facility for Georgia's peanut farmers. The Commission Board has decided to move forward with an offer on the property. We have studied the issue long and hard but the time is now to move forward.

We also had a board meeting and covered a lot of business. The Administration continues to offer challenges in the implementation of this farm bill. The 10 acre base exclusion has caused a lot of problems for a lot of farmers and is a way bigger issue than peanuts. Pennsylvania has the most farms affected.

After the board meeting we had a meeting of the industry-wide grading committee. We seemed stalled for so long and now I am encouraged that there is a great deal of movement toward improving peanut grading.

I think somewhere along the way things will slow down and let us catch our breath but farming is never that way and therefore the Peanut Commission finds itself in a similar situation with always something to do.

September is going to be a busy month with harvest beginning, the Georgia Peanut Tour, A Cotton and Peanut Research Tour, The Plains Peanut Festival, the Farm Bureau Peanut Day, and so much more. Also, our March of Dimes promotion starts this month. This has been one of our great partnerships to get the health and nutrition message to consumers.

European Trip

I have been in Europe, actually Belgium and Holland this week. I flew out of Atlanta Saturday and arrived in Brussels Sunday. We met Monday and Tuesday with a company which manufactures sorting and scanning equipment and then Wednesday with the Ag Ambassador to the EU.

Today we met with the head buyer for Duyvis which is one of our best customers in Europe. They are owned by Pepsico.

I am tired and so glad to be going home but I dread the 10 hour flight and customs and all and then still having to drive home. I am already tired and that should about do me in.

I miss my whole family.

Saturday is Cole's birthday party so I should see them all there, except Mama and Daddy and siblings and all.

"Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home."

Visit to Duyvis

We visited Duyvis in Holland today. They are one of the biggest if not the biggest customers in Europe. They are a Pepsico brand that does snack nuts, especially a lot of cracker coated nuts. They are really good and it is a shame that noone in the US has tried marketing them. I believe the US market would accept them, especially young people.

We return home tomorrow. It has been a hard trip and by tomorrow night it will have been a long week. I am really ready to get home and hope I can make it home tomorrow night after we get to Atlanta. It is tough driving alone after so long up and ten hours on a plane.

BEST Xray Project

We were at the BEST factory in Belgium all day today. They make several types of sorting equipment and it is pretty interesting how well they can identify different things and sort them. They can sort recyclable garbage, seperate snakes and rats from lettuce, and for some time have been working with laser sorting to seperate foreign material and aflatoxin from peanuts.

More recently, they have started working with an industry committee on grading to develop paramaters which would allow an x-ray machine they manufacture to be used to grade peanuts.

These guys are good at what they can do if we can ever decide as an industry what it is we want to sample for.

I really dreaded this trip but I certainly am happy now I made it because there has been some very serious and good discussion spawned by our visit to BEST.

Here Bjorn Tumas of Belgium Electornic Sorting Technologies (BEST) explains a laser sorter to Randall Taylor with Georgia FSIS, Jack Chastain of Doster Warehouse, and Joe Boddiford of the Georgia Peanut Commission.