Harvesting Peanuts
Categories:
Vegetable Growing
I would like information regarding the curing of peanuts. Should they be
bleached, and, if so, how is it done? Does bleaching affect the keeping
qualities?
It is not usual to bleach peanuts. They should be grown in such light
soil that they will not be stained, and the common method of curing is
to dig or plow up, throw the vines, with nuts attached, into windrows
and allow them to lie a week or ten days
or drying. Then the nuts are
picked into sacks and cleaned before shipment in revolving drums,
followed by a grain fan which throws out the light nuts and other
rubbish. Bleaching would not destroy the keeping quality probably, but
it would destroy the flavor and the germinating power. The latter would
not matter, except with such nuts as you wish to keep for seed, because
the roasting destroys the germinating power also, but sulphuring, which
would reduce the flavor, would give the product a bad name. Possibly
some growers do bleaching, but, if so, they have to be pretty careful
about it. The cost of the operation would also be a bar to profit, for
peanuts are grown on a narrow margin owing to competition with
importations grown with cheap labor.