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Mike Howell (00:08):
The Dirt, with me, Mike Howell, an eKonomics podcast where I present the down and dirty agronomic science to help grow crops and bottom lines. Inspired by ekonomics.com, farming’s go-to informational resource, I’m here to break down the latest crop nutrition research, news, and issues, helping farmers make better business decisions through actionable insights. Let’s dig in.
(00:38):
Well, hello again, everyone. Welcome back to The Dirt. It’s been several weeks since we last talked about our nutrients, our essential nutrients, and thought it was time to get back onto some of those, and we’re going to spend today talking about boron and the needs for boron in the plants. To help us do that, we’re pleased to have Dr. John Beasley with the University of Auburn with us today. Dr. Beasley, thanks for joining us, and if you would, tell our listeners a little bit about yourself.
Dr. John Beasley (01:04):
Okay. Thank you very much, Mike. First of all, thank you for having me. It’s a pleasure to be with you in your program. My name is John Beasley and I’m a professor here at Auburn University. Prior to that I was on the faculty at the University of Georgia for 28 and a half years as Extension Peanut Agronomist, and in January of 2014, I returned to Auburn University as Head of the Department of Crop, Soil and Environmental Sciences. Many of our alumni remember it as the Department of Agronomy and Soils. And when I say I returned to Auburn University, that’s because I received my undergrad degree in agronomy and soils here at Auburn back in 1979. From there, I went on and got a MS degree in agronomy at Oklahoma State University working in peanut breeding, followed that up with working on a PhD at LSU.
(01:58):
I was there from ’81 to ’85 working in cotton breeding and genetics, and in 1985 I was hired at the University of Georgia. As I mentioned earlier, was there 28 and a half years, and then was offered the opportunity to be the department head over here of the Department of Crop, Soil and Environmental Sciences, and I was in that role up until last week. August 1st, I transitioned back into the regular faculty role. I’m actually preparing by the next summer of retiring from Auburn University, and so I’m pushing 38, 39 years in academia. So, that’s where I am at this time. I’ve stepped down from my duty as department head so I can focus on several different projects for the department in the College of Agriculture here at Auburn University and work on those over the next, say, 11 months or so, and prepare for whatever life brings me next.
Mike Howell (02:53):
Dr. Beasley, that’s quite a career. I know you’ve done a lot to help farmers out there over the course of your career, and not just farmers, you’ve helped me out a lot. When they asked me to take care of peanuts in Mississippi years ago, I had no idea what I was doing and I think your phone number was the first number I found when I started digging into it. You helped me get started in that and make a successful career out of that over here in Mississippi, and I really appreciate that.
(03:21):
So, let’s dig in and talk a little bit about boron this morning. Boron is an essential plant nutrient, and with all of your experience in peanuts and cotton as well, I know that’s two of the crops that we really use boron in and have to make sure we have boron available for those crops. If you would, Dr. Beasley, tell us a little bit about the function of boron inside the plant.
Dr. John Beasley (03:44):
Well, like you said, Mike, boron is an essential element, and when we start thinking about nutrition, and I’m going to really focus on peanut, that’s the crop I’ve worked with for so many years, it’s absolutely an element that you cannot get by without applying each and every year. When you think about peanut production and you think about, okay, what are the things that you absolutely must do each and every year with a peanut crop, and what can you get by without using? First of all, we have to have the peanut seed obviously, but after that, we think about do we need to add additional fertilizer? Soil testing is going to tell you whether or not you need any phosphorus or potassium, and peanut is a plant that’s excellent with its root system in scavenging for phosphorus and potassium in the root zone. So, you may or may not need to add additional fertilizer in a peanut crop in a certain year if that’s already up in the medium or higher levels.
(04:42):
Calcium, which is probably the most critical element there along with boron, but calcium, if you’ve got adequate calcium in that pegging zone, you may or may not need to add additional calcium. If your pH is fine, you may or may not need to add additional lime. When you think about pest control, there are certain things that you may or may not have to apply. You may not have to spray for insects in certain years, but you do absolutely need to control thrips with a insecticide at planting time, you absolutely need to apply fungicides to control leaf spot, because you are going to have leaf spot if you don’t use it, and then you get to boron. You absolutely must apply boron to each and every peanut field every year. Boron is a very leachable, mobile element. It’ll move down through the soil profile if it’s already in the soil very quickly, particularly on the sandy soils in which we plant peanut.
(05:41):
That’s just one thing when you go into a peanut season, you’re going to absolutely have to apply boron to that peanut crop each and every year. And your question was, what is the function of boron? Well, it has two very important roles. Number one is one that most farmers think about that grow peanut, and that is a deficiency symptom known as hollow heart. Hollow heart is where that peanut kernel does not develop fully. It’ll have a caved in, a poorly developed kernel shape. It’ll cut in yield, it’ll reduce your quality. So, a clear symptom that you can see of boron deficiency is when you open that kernel or that pod and you look at that seed or kernel and you look in there and split it open in half and you see that kind sunken in area, that’s a clear sign that you didn’t have adequate boron for that year.
(06:38):
But the other absolutely critical role that most farmers don’t think about is that it is a critically important element as it relates to pollination, and by that what I mean is the peanut flower is a self-fertilized plant. In other words, the male and female structures are on the same flower, and our peanut producers are very aware of that little small yellow bloom that the peanut plant produces. The bloom is enclosed and so it’ll self-fertilize. Well, the anthers are in one part of the plant, that’s your male part, and when the pollen is expended from the anthers, it attaches to the stigma. Then it travels down what we call the pollen tube, and what the farmers have is the flower stem.
(07:29):
The pollen tube is inside that flower stem, so the pollen grains that are going to fertilize and produce the peanut must travel from that stigma down through that pollen tube down to the base where the two little ovules are to fertilize those ovules, which become the two peanut seed. Boron is absolutely critical in the development of that pollen tube. So, if you don’t have sufficient boron, what will happen is you will have poor fertilization because of the lack of development of that little pollen tube that’s inside that flower stem.
Mike Howell (08:02):
Dr. Beasley, that’s a lot of information about boron in just a short amount of time. I remembered about the hollow heart and I had forgotten about the pollination part of it. I’m glad you brought that up. We tend to focus a lot on the four R’s on this program, getting the nutrients put out when they need to be in the right source, the right place, the right time, and in the right amount. You kind of touched on boron critical for pollination and seed development, so I’m assuming if we’re looking at the right time, we need to get that put out just before that peanut crop starts to bloom. Is that right?
Dr. John Beasley (08:36):
Mike, you’re absolutely correct, and in fact once you get that peanut crop up and growing, you want to make sure that boron is applied at a time when the plant’s going to need it the most. Well, just as we’ve described, it’s going to need it as a critical part of pollination and seed development, so you can’t wait until 30 days before harvest to think about it and put it out because by then it’s too late. A standard recommendation has always been to put out your boron in your first and/or second fungicide applications, which typically go out in that first 35 to 45 days, and typically that’s the initiation of the reproductive system on a peanut plant, and all of that’s driven by climate, by heat units. And to give you an example, and that’s why farmers, peanut producers need to pay close attention to the development of their peanut plants, and I’ll give you an example.
(09:32):
A farmer that plants a little on the early side, let’s say mid to late April, the amount of heat units it’s going to accumulate during the vegetative stage to trigger the plant to go into the reproductive stage or the blooming, it may take 45 days, maybe even 50 days if it’s a cool spring. If you’re planting in mid-May or even forced to plant later May, the amount of heat units that plant’s going to accumulate during each and every day, it may start blooming at 25 days. And I’ve heard farmers in the past say, “Boy, my peanuts are blooming like crazy and it’s only been about 25 days.” Well, again, that’s triggered by heat units, by the amount of average maximum temperature that plant has every day.
(10:14):
So, depending on when you plant, that’s when you need to kind of focus on when you start those initial applications of boron. So, if you think about it this way, Mike, if you’re waiting to start your fungicide spray program at about 35 to 40 days with that first leaf spot spray, your plant may already be blooming. There are some situations in which waiting to put that first boron application or only boron application out until you put the first foliar fungicide, you may be a little on the late side. So, you need to monitor that very carefully. You’d like to put the boron out just prior to or right at the initiation of initial blooming of those plants.
Mike Howell (10:59):
Dr. Beasley, you mentioned a lot about growing degree days and heat units. I just want to put a plug in for our eKonomics website, that’s www.nutrien-ekonomics, with a K, .com. That’s one of the tools that we have on that website, is a growing degree day calculator. Growers can use that for their actual farm, plug in their information and pull weather from the closest weather station to their farm there and help determine what the growing degree days or heat unit accumulation has been for that crop since they planted it, help them determine when to put out these applications a little better.
(11:34):
Dr. Beasley, you mentioned one application of boron or maybe two applications. Is there any benefit to splitting this application of boron into two applications?
Dr. John Beasley (11:44):
That’s always been a great question, Mike, and I don’t know that it’s absolutely critical that it has to be split in two. I know that the target is to put one half pound of elemental boron, so the product you use will be dictated by what the formulation of that product may be. Your goal is to get one half pound of actual elemental boron out. Those producers who have traditionally put it out in say two applications, maybe split it in their first two fungicide applications, they would put out a quarter pound of elemental boron in the first application, a quarter pound in the second one for that total of a half pound.
(12:23):
And actually, as long as you get that, if you’re splitting it in two and you get that first application out right at initial bloom and then two weeks later the second one, that’s fine, because it’s going to take a good three to five weeks for that plant to really hit peak bloom and you’re going to continue to see blooming throughout the season, but there’s going to be a time of what we call peak bloom and it’ll build up. And then as the plant’s energies are focused then on development of the seed or the pod, it starts transitioning to producing less blooms. One application of boron is absolutely fine. That will work as long as you get it out right there at initial bloom or just prior to initial bloom. Just depends on the product that you’re using and what works best in your system as far as the amount of times you’re traveling over that particular field.
Mike Howell (13:17):
Okay. Dr. Beasley, you mentioned earlier that boron was mobile in the soil. It’s highly mobile in the soil and we can lose that boron. That’s one of the reasons we have to apply it every year. What about once it gets in the plant? Is that boron going to move around in the plant or does it stay in one place in that plant?
Dr. John Beasley (13:34):
Well, it’s also very mobile in the plant and it moves in the xylem. What you have in plants is you have xylem, which is the series of cellular structures in the plant that move the water through the plant, so it comes through the root system and then as water’s taken up by the root system and it moves up through the xylem. Think of it as pipes in your house, and so the pipes that are moving it up, that would be your xylem, and then as your leaf tissue begins to photosynthesize and produce the sugars and the food that the plant’s going to use for the vegetative structures, for the fruiting structures, and in peanuts, the fruiting structure obviously is the pod and they’re down in the soil, that’s your phloem, and your phloem are the pipes that lead nutrients down into the developing seed.
(14:22):
You are going to have some boron obviously moving into the seed. That’s why we’ve got to get it and through that pollen tube as that flower structure develops. But also, if you take a day that’s like we’ve had a lot this summer, which is temperature in the mid to upper 90s, high humidity, especially along the Florida and Alabama and Mississippi Coast, those plants are transpiring, or as for humans, sweating, but for plants, transpiring, so you have have a lot of movement of water. That’s why we see plants when we go several days on these sandy soils without any rainfall, what you will see is those plants begin to show a little bit of symptoms of wilt after about four or five days, and that’s because they’re moving so much water from the root system through that plant out through the leaf tissue, and that’s where your boron is going. It’s moving all through that plant particularly, but going up through that xylem system.
Mike Howell (15:19):
Dr. Beasley, you mentioned the deficiency symptoms earlier and I think you did a good job describing those, but it seems like I also remember that we can get too much boron and we have to pay special attention and not put out too much boron during the year. What are some effects of having too much boron?
Dr. John Beasley (15:35):
Well, you can get some leaf tissue burn. That’s probably the number one thing. And the thing about leaf tissue burn, whether it comes from a herbicide, whether it comes from a diseased part like leaf spot, anything that kills the cells on the tissue, nutrient burn can be one of those. If you have a leaf tip burn from insects, burn from any kind of fertilizer, any kind of pesticide application, you’re destroying those cells that normally would be green and photosynthesizing and producing the food that’s going to feed development of the fruit. And like I said, in this case on peanut, the fruit is that pod, and that’s your yield component. You don’t want to do anything if you can help it at all with having any burn or necrosis on that leaf tissue. So, that’s the biggest concern that I have with putting, especially on some products that you put on early in the morning and the leaves are wet, that can cause burn. We just don’t want to injure that leaf tissue at all. So, that’s the biggest concern that I have.
Mike Howell (16:42):
Dr. Beasley, we’ve covered a lot of information this morning about boron. Is there anything else that you know that’s critical about boron that listeners maybe need to be aware of?
Dr. John Beasley (16:51):
Well, again, I think the most critical thing that I can think of right now, and that is just getting it out, getting it on. I know again, there’s production things that we have to monitor or measure and we may or may not need to apply, and that can help in our bottom line. If we don’t have to put on additional fertilizer like extra phosphorus and potassium because the levels are high, then that’s money you’re saving and not putting into the crop that’ll help your net return. But boron is one of those we just can’t forget. We’ve got to put it on there, and like I said, it’s like putting something out first of the season to manage thrips, it’s like making sure that we get our foliar fungicides on to protect against leaf spot. Now, another disease management, we may or may not have a problem with white mold or limb rot or one of the other soil-borne diseases that would require a fungicide application, but we’ve got to control leaf spot.
(17:50):
If you think about it this way, you got to control thrips, you got to control leaf spot, and you got to put boron on, and other things, you just monitor, you scout, you walk that field, you look and see what needs to be done. We do know that we’re going to have to manage weeds. Your weed management program will depend upon what the species are that you have and how good a job you’ve done in managing weeds in fields in the past. You may or may not have to have a really high-level weed management program if you’ve done a good job in the past. Insects are just a year-to-year variation, but boron, you cannot forget it. You just go into the season knowing you got to get it on there right at or just before initial bloom.
Mike Howell (18:33):
Dr. Beasley, we sure appreciate all your information today. We’ve spent a lot of time in the truck together and looking at peanuts and you taught me an awful lot years ago, but seems like one thing the conversation always turned to before we finished up was SEC football, and it’s just right around the corner. I know the preseason polls came out just a day or two ago and there’s several SEC teams listed in that top 25, but I did not see Mississippi State or Auburn, either one listed in that top 25 this year.
Dr. John Beasley (19:00):
No, and I’m not surprised on either of those teams, although I think both teams are going to be good. And you are right, Mike, and I have a lot of fond memories of those days with you visiting us in Georgia and me visiting Mississippi and working with Mississippi State Extension, and I remember doing the grower meeting in the winter down in Hattiesburg and doing harvest clinics and field days up in there around Hamilton, Mississippi and that area. Spent a lot of time working with you guys at Mississippi State and that was a lot of fun. And you’re right, we can’t help but talk about SEC football, and looking at it, the usual suspects are there, Alabama and Georgia, they’re going to be strong and they’re going to be highly ranked at the end of the season. There’s always a surprise or two in there like Arkansas last year, who saw that coming?
Mike Howell (19:48):
Right.
Dr. John Beasley (19:49):
And of course Texas A&M is fairly highly regarded, but I think when you look at the SEC West, which I think you and I both agree, when you take from one through seven, SEC West is going to be the strongest of any across any conference and any division within a conference. Even I think you take Auburn and Mississippi State who I think in SEC media days will rank the bottom two in the SEC West, six and seven, but I dare say that Auburn and Mississippi State will surprise some folks this year. They may not win the SEC West, but I think there’s a chance that both teams will do well.
(20:25):
I think you got LSU and Ole Miss kind of stuck in there in between Alabama, Texas A&M grouping, so it’s going to be a fun year. The SEC West is going to be fun. Kentucky has had two really great seasons back to back, and I think a lot of people are thinking, can Kentucky take down Georgia in the SEC East? Tennessee’s kind of building back. SEC football year to year is just so much fun to watch. I’m excited for this season.
Mike Howell (20:53):
After this season, things are going to change and I don’t know if we know today how that’s going to look going forward, but it’ll still be SEC football and we’ll still enjoy it and root our favorite teams on. John, one of the things that we’re starting on our program, and this is actually going to be one of our first podcasts about this, is tailgating. My oldest son is a senior in high school this year. He’s starting left tackle for Poplarville High School, and they’ve been to the State Championship six of the last seven years. They have not had the chance to win it yet. They’ve been right there on the doorstop several times and just can’t quite get it done.
(21:25):
We’re going to start talking about our tailgate at the high school football game every week, and we’re still one week away from football season getting kicked off, but it’s never too early to start preparing, and what I wanted to talk about this week is a staple at any football tailgate. You just can’t have a football tailgate without having some boiled peanuts around. And since we talked about peanuts today, I thought this would be a great time to talk about boiled peanuts. Now, everybody does their boiled peanuts a little bit differently, but I went to our local peanut producer here this week and they have just started digging some peanuts and I got two bags of those big jumbo peanuts, two 40-pound sacks, and I’ve got those ready to start boiling this week. We’re going to get those boiled up ahead of time and put them in the freezer and have them ready. We’ll eat on them all season long.
(22:12):
But when I boil peanuts, I do two batches. I do one batch that’s just regular boiled peanuts, and I’ll put that whole sack in my big crawfish cooking pot and put about a pound of salt in there and let them boil for 45 minutes or so until that water all gets in there and those shells start getting soft, and then I turn the heat off and let them sit there for a couple of hours and soak in that salt water solution. After that, I’ll take them out and put them into Ziploc bags and put them in the freezer and we can just heat those up and eat them anytime.
(22:42):
Now, the second batch I’m going to do is very similar to the first, except I’m going to put in about a pound of crab oil in there with it this time and kind of spice them up a little bit. Some of the kids just aren’t into all the spice and seasoning just yet. They’ve got to grow into that I guess, but I kind of like to get them spiced up a little bit myself, and that crab oil does good at getting in there and spicing them up, and the longer you let them sit in that water, the spicier they’ll get. So, John, have you got any other tips on boiling peanuts?
Dr. John Beasley (23:10):
Mike, it’s funny, when you talk about boiled peanuts and high school football, my goodness, it takes me back many, many years ago, and I’m 66, so it is a long time ago. I grew up in Southeast Alabama near the Dothan area right there, Georgia, Alabama, Florida Corner.
Mike Howell (23:26):
The peanut capital of the world.
Dr. John Beasley (23:28):
Yeah, absolutely. In Henry and Houston County, Alabama, and then Early County, Georgia was right there about a mile and a half away from my house across the Chattahoochee River. Houston, Henry County, Alabama, and Early County, Georgia at one time, all three were the top three peanut producing counties in the US when I was growing up, and I lived in the geographical center of those three counties, and you just didn’t go to a high school football game without boiled peanuts. If you didn’t take them yourself, somebody would be selling them there and you always had some boiled peanuts. Of course, then I ended up, couldn’t eat them while I was in high school because I was playing football, so I couldn’t eat them until after the game.
(24:06):
But yeah, you’re right, boiled peanuts go with high school football, college football. It’s just a part of what we do here in the South. Your recipe is right on target, I know that what I’ve always done in boiling fresh-boiled peanuts is just like you said, get them rolling, boiling for about an hour and then just letting them sit for a couple, three hours to just really soak in that, and you can salt. You got to watch it putting too much salt to begin with, but here’s a recommendation. If somebody has peanuts and they think, “Ooh, I just put too much salt in,” you can actually re-boil them and just put water and it’ll kind of dilute that saltiness. The Cajun spice boiled peanuts have become a real popular thing, and I agree with you, those can be quite tasty, but the key thing that a lot of people have to understand, they want to take almost mature peanuts from farmers and try and boil those. Those are not going to be near as good.
(25:01):
You want to work with a farmer that harvests the peanuts green or immature, and in that case, what you want is if you’ve got your typical, let’s say your runner, your large-seeded runner peanuts that are about typically 140-day peanuts, you want to find somebody that’s harvesting them about 100 to 110 days. You want to get them about a month, a little over a month earlier than what would be normally harvested for fully mature peanuts, and those are the ones that are the most tasty and the best and easiest to eat. Make sure they’re not too mature, and salt to taste. Again, some people like them a little saltier than others. Make sure you boil them long enough so they get good and soft. High school and college football in the South wouldn’t be the same without having boiled peanuts.
Mike Howell (25:44):
That’s right, John, and that’s just one of the many uses for peanuts. I was doing a little research and looked at the National Peanut Board website. It takes 540 peanuts to make a 12 ounce jar of peanut butter. We go through a lot of peanut butter here at my house. And it also says that every American is going to consume about 3,000 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in their lifetime. My family has really helped boost that average up. I think we probably go through about 3,000 a year here, we eat that much peanut butter. There was one other fact, and it was talking about the Girl Scouts and their peanut butter Girl Scout cookies and they use about 230,000 pounds of peanut butter per week just to bake those Girl Scout cookies. So, peanuts and peanut butter are quite a big industry, and we’re right down here in the heart of it. Georgia is the biggest peanut producing state by far in the country, and most of the rest of the top 10 is down here in the Southeast.
Dr. John Beasley (26:37):
You’re absolutely right. In fact, our state of Alabama has traditionally been number two in production over many years. There’s been a year or two in which Texas had more acres in production than Alabama, but here recently, Alabama has maintained its role as the number two peanut producing state. When you look at the difference in production, Georgia produces 45 to 50% of all the peanuts in the US, typically close to 50%, and then your number two and three states are Alabama and Florida or Alabama and Texas. So, Alabama, Texas, Florida are number two, three, four, and typically Alabama’s number two, and Alabama may be between 15 and 20%, to show you that big drop off from about 50% in Georgia and about 15 to 20% in Alabama, and then on down the line.
(27:20):
The interesting thing, Mike, when you go back, when I started my career working with peanuts for University of Georgia in ’85, there were nine peanut producing states. You had what was called the Virginia/Carolina area, which was Virginia, North Carolina. Then you had the Southeast, which was Georgia, Alabama, Florida. Then you had the Southwest, which was Texas, Oklahoma, and a little bit of Valencia production over in New Mexico. Well, of course, Mississippi, and you referenced that and working with Mississippi growers, Mississippi’s always grown a little bit, but they really started ramping up probably about 20 years ago. South Carolina really ramped up big time about the same time. Now you got Arkansas, which has a big peanut production area now. Louisiana’s always had a little bit, particularly in Northeast Louisiana, the Bootheel of Missouri. And so now what you’ve got is the Virginia/Carolina area is typically that Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and North Carolina produces quite a bit, followed by South Carolina, then Virginia. Then you got the Southeast being still pretty much Georgia, Alabama, Florida, and we used to always include Mississippi in that.
(28:29):
But I think now a lot of the industry is looking at the Delta region, which is your Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Bootheel of Missouri. So, Mississippi’s kind of that transition between Southeast and Delta region, and then of course Southwest is still Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico. But I think the big change I’ve seen in peanut production in the US is these increased number of producers in Mississippi, the producers in Arkansas, and then those few in the Bootheel of Missouri, and of course those few in Louisiana, which truly gives us a Delta region, kind of like what we have in cotton production, that Delta cotton. That’s been a big change in peanut production in the US.
Mike Howell (29:08):
Yep, and John, I’ve said it before, I think you’re a big part of that change. If you hadn’t have been here to graciously come over and help Mississippi get started, I don’t know that those changes would’ve occurred, and we just can’t thank you enough for all you did to help us get started here in Mississippi way back when.
Dr. John Beasley (29:21):
Mike, I appreciate that, and like I said, I have some very fond memories of doing field days and driving and looking at growers’ fields in South Mississippi and up in, I guess you’d call Northeast Mississippi or that area up around Hamilton and Aberdeen. And I even looked at some peanuts over, I guess where you, quote, unquote, “fall off the cliff” from the Hill Country into the Delta, down in that area. That was quite an experience with some of the producers over there, where you come out of that Hill Country and then, boom, it just turns completely flat going over to the Mississippi. So, I’ve had the experience in Mississippi of working pretty much from the northern end of peanut production all the way to the southern end down around Forest County. I treasure those days working in Mississippi, and that was a lot of fun. I still have a lot of great friends in the state of Mississippi.
Mike Howell (30:06):
John, we sure appreciate you taking the time out to visit with us today and talk about boron and talk about the peanut industry growers. We hope you’re enjoying these episodes. If you would, we’d like to encourage you to give us a rating and pass these episodes on to your friends and neighbors so they can benefit from them as much as you are. Until next time, this has been Mike Howell with The Dirt.
