Farms.com Home › News

Peanut Pointers

Mar 25, 2015

Subscribe to our Newsletters

By Ronnie Barentine

Finish soil sampling. Do not ignore deficiencies or toxicity problems. This will reduce yield and profit. This will be more of a problem where growers are renting new land and may not know much of the rotation or fertility history.

Germination Issues: Save about a pound of seed out of each lot you plant. The sample can be used later to help diagnose potential germination issues. Samples will need to be kept in a cool place until plants stands are assessed. After stands are assessed, the 1 pound samples can be used for germination tests or properly discarded.

With Germination in mind, in some areas of the state growers are planting 170 to 200 lbs of Georgia-06G to get 5 to 6 plants up in their fields. This seems excessive. We need to determine if this is a seed quality issue or planting issues.

Do not plant in April until 4” soil temperatures reach 68 degrees for 3 to 4 consecutive days with no severe cool snaps expected within 5 days.

Clean and calibrate In furrow equipment for inoculants and insecticides.

Source: uga.edu

Video: Spring 2026 weather outlook for Wisconsin; What an early-arriving El Niño could mean

Northeast Wisconsin is a small corner of the world, but our weather is still affected by what happens across the globe.

That includes in the equatorial Pacific, where changes between El Niño and La Niña play a role in the weather here -- and boy, have there been some abrupt changes as of late.

El Niño and La Niña are the two phases of what is collectively known as the El Niño Southern Oscillation, or ENSO for short. These are the swings back and forth from unusually warm to unusually cold sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean along the equator.

Since this past September, we have been in a weak La Niña, which means water temperatures near the Eastern Pacific equator have been cooler than usual. That's where we're at right now.

Even last fall, the long-term outlook suggested a return to neutral conditions by spring and potentially El Niño conditions by summer.

But there are some signs this may be happening faster than usual, which could accelerate the onset of El Niño.

Over the last few weeks, unusually strong bursts of westerly winds farther west in the Pacific -- where sea surface temperatures are warmer than average -- have been observed. There is a chance that this could accelerate the warming of those eastern Pacific waters and potentially push us into El Niño sooner than usual.

If we do enter El Nino by spring -- which we'll define as the period of March, April and May -- there are some long-term correlations with our weather here in Northeast Wisconsin.

Looking at a map of anomalously warm weather, most of the upper Great Lakes doesn't show a strong correlation, but in general, the northern tiers of the United States do tend to lean to that direction.

The stronger correlation is with precipitation. El Niño conditions in spring have historically come with a higher risk of very dry weather over that time frame, so this will definitely be a transition we'll have to watch closely as we move out of winter.