RAYMOND, Miss. -- Mississippi’s peanut producers are close to wrapping up harvest for 2024.

“We are 90% to 95% done,” Brendan Zurweller, peanut specialist with the Mississippi State University Extension Service, said on Oct. 29. “Harvest progress has been a little ahead of schedule because of the dry weather.”

According to the October 27 Crop Progress and Condition report by the U.S. Department of Agriculture National Agricultural Statistics Service, 91% of the crop has been dug and 76% has been harvested.

Yields are variable across the state depending on how much rain fields have gotten. While the northeast and southwest portions of the state have been dry, fields in the southeast had a good amount of precipitation. Many Delta fields are irrigated and have not been affected as much.

Producers planted 25,500 acres of peanuts, a 30% increase from last year.

“The increase in acreage was driven by prices,” said Zurweller, who is also a researcher with the Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station. “Peanut prices were better than corn, cotton and soybeans on a per acre basis this year. Cotton is the biggest competitor for peanut acreage since it’s most commonly rotated with peanuts.”

This year, growers returned between 4,000 and 5,000 acres to peanut production. These acres had been used to grow other crops in the last four to five years.

Zurweller said he expects yield to be about the same as last year -- around 4,000 pounds per acre. However, in areas of the state that experienced extremely dry conditions, yield will be slightly down.

“Limited rainfall throughout the growing season and, to some degree, the heat will reduce yield in some areas of the state,” he said. “Our quality also will be down quite a bit because of the hot, dry weather. That means our peanuts won’t grade as well.”

While producers dealt with both white mold disease and aflatoxin, neither was a major issue.

“White mold is something that has to be managed every year,” Zurweller said. “It’s not something that was out of the ordinary or at an extreme level.”

Mississippi producers grow runner-type peanuts. Premium grade nuts are almost all sold for use in peanut butter and candies. Lower grade nuts are crushed for oil markets.

Although peanut production is expected to be up nationwide at 6.4 billion pounds, a decently strong demand will cause ending stocks to see a small rise of 110 million pounds to 1.5 billion pounds, said Will Maples, Extension agricultural economist.

“This would be the second lowest level of ending stocks since 2016 and would provide some support to peanut prices,” he said.

According to current USDA forecasts, the average price for the 2024-2025 national marketing year is 26.50 cents per pound, compared to 26.90 cents last year.

“Given weak cotton prices, peanuts are expected to maintain or increase acreage next year. This will add downward pressure to the market, so producers could see slightly lower contract offers than last year,” Maples said.