PEANUTS – tried with mixed success in many graingrowing districts – are now playing an important role in the cropping rotations on Tim Ramsay’s “Girraween” aggregation on the NSW-Queensland border at Bonshaw.
The summer legume crop fits in nicely with alternating crops of maize and sweet corn that are grown under 400 hectares of centre-pivot irrigation supplied by the Dumaresq River.
This year 108ha of hi-oleic, Holt peanuts were planted on “Girraween” on October 20.
The crop was sown with a John Deere 1700 Maximerge disc planter on 91-centimetre rows at 162,000 seeds a hectare.
The seed, from the Peanut Company of Australia (PCA) at Kingaroy, comes pre-coated with fungal treatments to prevent disease.
At the farm, a cup of talcum powder is added to each batch of seed fed through the 106-litre hoppers to prevent blockages and help the seed flow through the planter.
The powder vibrates down through the material, coating the seeds and making them slippery.
Read more On Farm stories in this week's The Land.
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