Planting Of Peanut Or Groundnut

The crop is cultivated between 40ºN to 40ºS of the equator and it grow best in light textured sandy loam soils with neutral pH. Optimum peanut production can be achieved with optimum temperature for their growth and development ranges from 28 to 30 ºC and the crop requires about 500-600 mm of well distributed rainfall.

The area for planting peanut shall be free from hazardous substances and pesticides that may leave residues or contaminate peanut kernels to the level harmful to consumers.

Peanuts are planted in April or May and harvested in September. Peanuts take about 3-5 days for germination and emergence from the soil at 30° C. The crop is a self-pollinated crop whereby flowers occur on elongated are produced above ground and, after fertilization, pegs move towards the soil, and seed-containing pods are formed and developed underneath the soil.

The peanut grows as a plant that blooms yellow flowers and the petals wilt after a period of time and signal the underground growth of the nuts.

Peanut should be harvested at the right stage of maturity normally farmer waits until the soil not too wet or too dry before digging. During harvesting, using portable mechanical pickers peanuts are removed from vines and are delivered to warehouses for cleaning.
Planting Of Peanut Or Groundnut

World peanuts production

Peanuts are a globally important oilseed valued as a source of high-quality cooking oil. Peanuts are also appreciated worldwide as an affordable, flavorful and nutritionally dense snack food.

India, China and Indonesia have the largest peanut-growing areas in Asia, while in Africa the major producers are Nigeria, Senegal and Sudan. In the western hemisphere, the United States, Brazil, and Argentina are the leading peanut producers.

Seventy percent of the world peanut production occurs in the semiarid tropics. The average yield of peanuts in the semiarid tropics (0.8 t/ha of dried pods) is lower than the world average (estimated at 1.1 t/ha of dried pods in 1985) and much lower than yields of over 3 t/ha obtained in the developed countries.

Over 55% of the United States crop goes into peanut butter manufacture: the other 45% is distributed between candy, salted nuts, confections, bakery, items and peanuts crushed for oil.

However, in term of world consumption nearly 70% of the world peanut crop is used for oil product and peanut oil accounts for 20% of the total vegetable oil consumption.
World peanuts production 

Growing peanuts

Peanut plants grow best in sandy or loose soil with warm, sunny weather and moderate rain. Most peanuts need about five months to maturity.

The peanut plant is a low bush. Some kinds grow long low branches called ‘runners’. Peanuts should not be planted on the same land oftener than once in 3 or 4 years. The rotation should include are last two sol-building crops, one of which is a winter cover crop.

In spring, farmers plant peanut seeds. Green plants with yellow flowers grow from the seeds.

The kind and quantity of commercial fertilizer that may be profitably used for peanuts depend largely on the character and fertility of the soil.

Commercial fertilizer is usually applied in the row just before planting or with a planter equipped with a fertilizer distributor.

In fall, farmers use machines to pull up the peanut plants. Peanuts are harvested when the plants turn yellow at the end of the season.

The whole plant is pulled out of the ground with the peanuts still hanging on the pegs. The plants are left to cure in the garden or in a frost-protected enclosure for 2-3 weeks.

The second process involves combining. In this process, the combine lifts the plants, picks the pods from the vine on the hopper on the machine, and blows fragmented plants back into the field.
Growing peanuts

Crop of Peanuts

By 500 to 100 BC peanuts were so common on the coast of Peru. Peanuts were eaten in exactly the way they are eaten today – toasted in the shell as a snack.

The peanut made its way to Africa a half millennia ago and with the slave trade found its way to North America.

The peanut (A. hypogaea), also called groundnut and earthnut, among other names, is technically a pea not a nut. It is the most popular nut in the United States.

Peanuts are important legume crop in the warm climates of the world.

Peanuts are produced in Asia, Africa, Australia and the Americas. India and China together account for more than 50% of the world’s total production.

It is an unusual plant in the sense that it flowers above ground, but fruits below ground.

Peanuts is a food high in proteins, monosaturated fat, and the antioxidant reservratol, the peanut is showing it self to be an able protector of the human heart and blood vessel.
Crop of Peanuts