site logo

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.



More

;