Crop Rotation

Crop Rotation

Peanuts are extremely sensitive to the effects of other crops grown in rotation with them, especially the crop that immediately precedes them.

Peanut seedling diseases may be more pronounced and damaging when peanuts follow peanuts or cotton. Leaf spot and web blotch diseases usually are more severe when peanuts follow peanuts. Verticillium and Fusarium wilts can increase when peanuts follow potatoes and other vegetable crops.

Grass-type crops such as corn, grain sorghum, millet, or other small grains are the crops of choice to immediately precede a peanut crop. Fertilization requirements of these grass-type rotation crops can contribute to residual soil fertility for the following peanut crop. The deeper root systems of peanuts can use soil nutrients that may have leached below the shallower root zones of most grass-type crops. Rotating peanuts with grass-type crops reduces the incidence of southern blight, Pythium, and some soil nematodes. Grass-type crops do not serve as hosts for these diseases and can reduce the quantity of potentially infective disease inoculum for subsequent peanut crops.

However, any rotation program will have some problems. Without the addition of organic materials such as manure or compost, freshly broken-out pasture land typically has too low an organic content for good peanut production. Land previously in corn and grain sorghum may have herbicide residues (the s-Triazine type) that could carry over and damage a following peanut crop. Slow decomposition of large stalked corn residues can encourage peanut pod rot and pod discoloration.