Growing Conditions and Farming

The United States grows four different types of peanuts. They include the Runner peanut, the Virginia peanut, Spanish peanut, and the Valencia peanut. The United States is also the only peanut producer that does not normally harvest the peanutcrops by hand. In the United States, most peanut farms are owned and operated by family alone.

An average peanut farm is approximately 100 acres. To give an idea of how many peanuts this is, it is estimated that there are enough peanuts in one acre alone to make 30,000 peanut butter sandwiches!

Peanuts are planted after the last frost in April or early May. This is because the soil temperatures must be 65 to 70 degress Fahrenheit. A peanut plant is actually grown from the peanut itself. The shelled peanut is the seed!

The seeds have been specially treated the year previous to planting and are placed approximately two inches below the surface of the ground.

From planting to harvest, the growth cycle of the peanut takes approximatley five months. After only ten days, the planted seeds split open and grow to 18 inches tall and they grow oval-shaped leaves.

The plant produces small delicate yellow flowers after 40 days following planting. These flowers pollinate themselves, the flower then falls off, and the peanut begins to form as a bud. This bud is called a "peg" and grows down into the ground, like in the picture to the left, where the peanuts then mature. A mature plant will produce about 40 of these "pegs" or pods that will mature into peanuts.

If planted as written above, in April or May, the peanuts are usually ready to be harvested in September or October. This is a good time because the ground is not too wet or too dry, so the peanuts remove from the ground easily when the plant is pulled from the soil.

To remove the plants, the farmer drives a tractor along the rows of the crop. An attachment digs with its blades, usually four to six inches long, under ground to loosen the plant. Following the attachment is a "shaker" that shakes off the soil from the peanuts. The plant then sits to dry in the sun for two to three days.

A combine is used to remove the peanuts from the plants' vines. A "hopper" is then used to collect the peanuts, leaving the plant on the ground to be bailed as hay for feed or mulched back into the field.

The peanuts are loaded into a wagon and then dried with forced air so they can be better stored. The dried peanuts are then weighed and inspected at buying stations where their quality and value is determined by the Federal-State Inspection Service. The peanuts are then bought, if of high enough quality, and taken to shelling plants to be used in various products.