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Item information

Title:
Earl and Bobby Lassiter
Description:
Transcribed from enclosed press release: Earl and Bobby Lassiter have started hunting peanut production problems with a rifle rather than a shotgun and they're bagging a lot of impressive results. Strong advocates of the prescription approach to farming, the Northampton County, N. C. father-son team averaged 4,400 pounds of peanuts per acre on 145 acres last year. Bobby, 25, averaged over 5,000 pounds on his own farm, which he just bought two years ago and grew peanuts on for the first time in '73. What helped make it a big year for the farmers, in Extension Chairman B. H. Harrell's option, was Bobby's desire to get away from a general program and to fit treatment to ailment--the rifle or prescription approach. Land preparation is one example. The tools used are the chisel plow and the moldboard. If there are stem rot and/or wiregrass problems in the field, it'll be broken in the fall and chisled in the spring. If the field is developing a hardpan or traffic pan but doesn't have stem rot or wiregrass, it'll get the chisel plow only. Rarely is a peanut field flipped or broken only. "Chisel plowing is becoming necessary to break up this traffic pan," Harrell explained. "But we believe any field should be broken every four or five years to mix the soil and keep the depth of the soil profile in good shape. The chisel plow won't do that." The Lassiters try to break a field ever three years.
Topics:
Agriculture
Community and Extension
Subjects:
Crop science
Farmers
Original Format:
Black and white print (photograph)
Item identifier:
ua023_007-006-bx0019-011-017
Created Date:
Digital Project:
University Archives Photographs