Harvesting Peanuts: 6 Things You Need to Know

Sep 14, 2022

Peanuts are a commonly-planted crop among agricultural producers, but like other hot-weather crops, they require specific machinery and preparations to ensure a successful harvest. Having the right machinery on hand, such as peanut harvesters, can be beneficial at the end of the season, but you’ll also need a few basic facts about how peanuts are grown, harvested, and stored. Let’s take a look at 6 things every farmer should know before harvesting and storing a crop of peanuts:

1. When are Peanuts Harvested?

Generally speaking, peanuts take between six and eight weeks to fully mature. Because they are typically planted at the end of the spring, they are often ready for harvest by late summer or early fall. Once peanuts have a dark brown or black hull, they are ready to be harvested.

2. How are Peanuts Harvested?

Peanuts can be easily harvested by carefully digging up the plant and shaking off the excess soil. A digger can be used to sever the roots of the plants and pull them away from the ground. Afterward, peanuts are typically placed in a windrow with their leaves facing downward. Agricultural producers typically give them at least three days to fully dry and cure.

3. How are Peanuts Shelled?

While it is not uncommon to withhold some peanuts for next year’s seed, most of the crop is sent to a sheller before being sold to market. The sheller specializes in cleaning the peanuts before using a machine to remove their shells. The machinery pushes the peanuts through perforated grates to separate the kernels from the shells.

4. Types of Peanuts and Their Harvest Timelines

Peanuts are either bunch-type or runner-type, and this dictates their harvest timeline. Runner-type peanuts grow via vines and require more space to thrive. They typically take between 130 and 150 days to fully mature.

Bunch-type peanuts grow their nuts at the end of their branches. Because they do not have as high a yield as runner-type peanuts, they are not typically grown by agricultural producers. However, those who do plant bunch-type peanuts usually need at least 120 days for this crop to reach maturity.

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Video: Western Canadian Agriculture: Hard Times Made the World's Best Farmers

Western Canadian agriculture produced the most advanced farmers in the world not through abundance but through adversity. The crow rate fell. The wheat price went nowhere. The brown envelopes stopped.

When the subsidies disappeared, the bad farmers left and the good ones stayed. And the ones who stayed could not just grow wheat anymore. They started growing lentils and canola and peas and flax and faba beans. They built crop rotation. They got serious about agronomy because there was no government backstop. That process produced the Western Canadian agriculture Dennis Bulani describes in this clip: the most advanced, most educated farming culture in the world.

His contrast with Iowa corn and soybean farmers is sharp. At a DeKalb farmer meeting in Okoboji, Iowa, he asked what crop rotation they ran. Beans on corn stubble, corn on bean stubble. How do you fertilize? The co-op agronomist handles it. Have you considered other crops? No need. We make so much money on corn and soybeans. Western Canadian agriculture was never allowed that comfort. And now those Iowa farmers are watching soybean markets lock up with China and corn prices slide, and they do not have the agronomy knowledge or the research base to pivot. Western Canadian farmers adapted on a dime because they had done it before.

Dennis also makes the case that Western Canadian agriculture keeps adapting in real time. Low commodity prices over the past year have pushed growers to look seriously at precision spot-spray technology. He knows a neighbor who bought a sprayer with the seeing-eye system and sprayed only 80 out of 320 acres. As a chemical retailer Dennis acknowledges that will affect his sales. He supports it anyway, because if it advances Canadian agriculture and makes farmers money, that is a good outcome.

The lesson Dennis draws from the tale of two farms: continuous improvement is the only durable strategy. When canola was $22 a bushel some growers went to Arizona instead of the Crop Production Show. When the price came down those same growers came back to the research and the discipline. Products do not go on Rack Petroleum's shelves unless they pass a replicated trial first. That is what Western Canadian agriculture built through hard times: farmers who do the work whether the times demand it or not.

Dennis Bulani is CEO of Rack Petroleum and Ultimate Yield in Biggar, Saskatchewan. Dan Aberhart hosts GTF Productions, Western Canadian Agriculture's foremost live briefing platform and its foremost AI training platform for ag operators