HOW DO PEANUTS GROW?
A peanut is a kind of pea, not a nut. It is the fruit of a peanut plant. The peanut plant is an annual that grows in warm climates and measures about 2 1/2 feet high and three to four feet across.
Peanut plants bear many small, yellow, pealike flowers where the leaves are attached to the stems. The plants blossom continuously for two to three months.
Flower buds open at sunrise. Fertilization takes place during the morning and the flowers usually wither and die at noon. Within a few days, the pegs or stalk like stems of the pods begin to grow. They grow slowly at first, but gradually grow more rapidly.
The pegs grow downward and push into the soil to a depth of one to three inches. The grown pegs may be about seven inches long.
The tips of the pegs contain the developing seeds. They swell and mature into peanut pods. Most pods contain two seeds, but some may contain only one or as many as five seeds.
Farmers must harvest peanuts at exactly the right time. If they harvest their crops too early, many pods will not have ripened. If they harvest them too late, the pegs may snap and many pods will be left in the soil. Most pods ripen 120 to 150 days after the seeds axe planted.
At harvest time, farmers use digging plows to slice through the main toot of each peanut plant below soil level. The plants, with pods attached, are lifted from the soil and left to dry in the sun. The pods axe sometimes collected when they axe half dry and dried artificially.
Machines called combines remove the pods from the dried plants. The pods are then cleaned and graded before they axe shelled.
Peanut plants grow best in light, well drained, sandy soil. They need much sunshine, warm temperatures, moderate rainfall and a frost free growing period of four to five months.
Farmers prepare the soil for peanuts by plowing it deeply and thoroughly. Loose soil is important so that the pegs can penetrate the soil easily.
Workers plant peanut seeds two to three inches deep at intervals of three to six inches and in rows 24 to 36 inches apart.
Large, unshelled peanuts are cleaned, polished and whitened before they are marketed. Manufacturers treat them to remove the skins and produce a whiter color.
Then they roast the peanuts to a rich, brownish color. Some peanuts are salted and roasted in their shell. They are soaked in salt water under pressure, and then dried and roasted.
Peanuts contain more edible oil than most other commercially grown crops.
Peanuts are native to South America. South American Indians were growing peanuts at least 1,000 years ago. Early colonists fed peanuts to hogs. Peanuts did not become an important commercial crop until about 1917.