178 



THE PEANUT— THE UNPREDICTABLE LEGUME 



In some localities the land is bedded before planting. At the time of 

 planting, the bed is opened with a small shovel or bull-tongue scooter 

 large enough to clean the beds and deep enough to level the top. 



After planting, the row should be slightly below or about even with 

 the middle and with a slight ridge in between. If the land is freshly 

 broken, usually no bed is formed. In this case, planting is made in a 

 small open furrow and the seed are covered sufficiently to level the surface 

 of the furrow slightly below the middle surface. Planting preparation in 

 any case should leave the ground in proper shape for the use of weeders 

 or rotary hoes, or for barring-off rows. 



Spacing of Peanuts 



Spacing tests to determine distances between rows and spacing of 

 hills in the row have been conducted by most of the experiment stations 



Table 6. — ^Average Yields of Runner Peanuts Spaced at Different Distances 

 IN the Row, Wiregrass Substation, Headland, Alabama, 1936-1943» 



• 400 pounds per acre 0-8-4 used before plantinsn 200 pounds per acre of gypsum applied as a top 

 dressing when blooming began, 



in the peanut-growing States. These tests have been made with both 

 bunch- and runner-type peanuts. In general, the results show that narrow 

 rows and thick spacing in the row produces the largest yields. When 

 plants are spaced wide in the drill some of the larger types of peanuts 

 produce nuts that are known as Jumbos. 



Alabama Agricultural Experiment Station Results. Reported in table 

 6 are average yields from a spacing test of runner peanuts conducted for 

 8 years, 1936-1943, at the Wiregrass Substation, Headland. Highest 

 yields were obtained from plants spaced 7 inches apart in the row. 



From an experiment conducted at Auburn, Alabama, 1918-1922, in- 

 clusive, Funchess and Tisdale (5) found that Spanish peanuts must be 

 planted thick for large yields. They obtained extreme yields of 1,785 

 pounds of nuts per acre from 4-inch spacing in 18-inch rows and 813 



