Peanut Response to Cultivar Selection, Digging Date, and Tillage Intensity

Abstract

Peanut (Arachis hypogaea L.) in the United States is generally grown in conventionally tilled systems. However, interest in reduced tillage peanut production has increased. Five experiments were conducted in North Carolina to determine if cultivar selection and digging date affected peanut yield and economic value when peanut was seeded into conventionally tilled seedbeds compared with strip tillage into small‐grain cover crop or stubble from the crop planted the previous summer. In separate experiments, peanut yield and economic value in these tillage systems were compared with peanut strip‐tilled into beds prepared the previous fall (stale seedbeds). Cultivar selection and digging date did not affect pod yield or gross value when comparing tillage systems. Pod yield in conventional and stale seedbed systems was similar in all five experiments where these systems were compared, and yields in these tillage systems exceeded those of strip tillage into crop stubble in three of five experiments. Pod yield was similar among all three tillage systems in the other two experiments. In experiments where only conventional tillage and strip tillage systems were compared, pod yield was similar between the two tillage systems in four experiments, higher in conventional tillage compared with strip tillage in one experiment, and higher for strip tillage compared with conventional tillage in one experiment. In 16 of 17 comparisons, pod yield of peanut planted in conventional tillage systems equaled or exceeded that of peanut planted into stubble from the previous crop.