Tag Archives: precision agriculture

Southern Peanut Growers Conference 2026: Progress, Technology, and the Next Generation

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Panama City Beach, FL |

For peanut farmers, the future isn’t some distant idea. It’s something they plan for every single day — navigating rising costs, shifting weather, and a constant stream of new technology. The decisions made today will help determine what the next generation of peanut farming looks like. And while the challenges are real, so is the progress.

That progress was on full display at the 2026 Southern Peanut Growers Conference, where researchers, producers, and industry leaders gathered to share the data, the tools, and the hard-won knowledge that is pushing peanut production to levels once thought unreachable.

YIELDS THAT WEREN’T SUPPOSED TO BE POSSIBLE

“Look at where we’ve been from 2012 all the way out to 2025 — significant improvements in yield every year,” said Marshall Lamb of the USDA-ARS National Peanut Research Laboratory. “I asked one of our elder gentlemen earlier: back in the early nineties, did you ever think the United States would be averaging right at four thousand pounds to the acre? And he said, ‘No, I would have never believed that.’ But we’ve done it. It’s good research, good extension, our private sector partners, and good farmers implementing technology on their farms.”

Technology is poised to take things even further. Simer Virk, Precision Agriculture Specialist at Auburn University, says the next wave is already approaching.

“Autonomous operations and machinery in agriculture — it’s a big thing right now, and we’re going to start seeing a lot more autonomous tractors and implements over the next three to five years,” Virk said. “Hopefully the field will continue to grow and, with all the technology excitement, even bring some younger farming generations back on the farms or help them adopt new technologies.”

NOT A SILVER BULLET — AN EDGE

After two days on the ground in Panama City Beach, one thing stood out: there was no single conversation happening. One room focused on disease management, another on markets, another on new equipment. But no one was looking for a miracle fix. They were looking for an edge — whether that came from a new peanut variety, a better spray program, more accurate weather data, or simply learning from another grower’s experience. In today’s farm economy, sometimes the smallest advantage makes the biggest difference.

TAKING CARE OF THE FARMER, TOO

While most conversations in Panama City centered on production, markets, and profitability, this year’s keynote speaker took the discussion in a different direction. Florida farmer and national mental health advocate Marshal Sewell reminded growers that during tough times, taking care of themselves is just as important as taking care of the farm.

“I think we’ve actually been making progress in terms of having more conversations around these difficult and even uncomfortable topics, and we need to continue having those open conversations — being upfront about the reality of our situations, understanding what one another is going through, and checking in on each other,” Sewell said. “It is a beautiful life, but it also comes with challenges, difficulties, and stresses. Who better understands those than other farmers and other farm families? So really rallying around that and joining together — remembering that we can support one another.”

RESPECT FOR WHAT CAME BEFORE

Eventually, all of the big-picture discussions find their way back to the farm — where every decision has a cost, every acre matters, and every generation hopes to leave the land better than they found it. For fifth-generation Georgia farmer Adam Curles of Mitchell County, that responsibility is personal.

“There are many things my granddad did, many things my dad did — it goes back through the generations before them. There are so many pieces to the puzzle that got us to where we are, and I have a lot of respect for that because there was a lot of hard work, a lot of determination, a lot of money spent,” Curles said. “We really need to respect what the generations before us have done, because if it wasn’t for that, we wouldn’t have anything to go with in the first place.”

Like so many young producers, Curles is learning to balance that tradition with innovation — respecting the lessons passed down, while embracing the research and new ideas that will keep the farm strong for the future.

“Every year is a different challenge. You’ve got different storms, insects, diseases — what happens this year isn’t going to happen next year. So there’s always this big hope that next year is going to be better,” Curles said. “And it always is that way.”

The challenges facing peanut farmers aren’t going away. But after spending time with the people helping shape this industry, one thing became clear: the future of peanut farming won’t be built by any one discovery, any one policy, or any one conference. It will be built by farmers willing to learn, adapt, and keep moving forward.

By: Ray D’Alessio

UGA Hosts Inaugural Southeastern Specialty Crop Technology Conference in Tifton

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Tifton, GA |

From drones spraying crops to robots scouting fields, technology has become a constant presence in Georgia’s number one industry. To help growers make sense of what’s available — and what actually works — the University of Georgia recently hosted the inaugural Southeastern Specialty Crop Technology Conference, giving attendees a firsthand look at the latest research and development shaping the future of agriculture.

“The reason behind the conference is to bring growers, academia, students, and the industry together and see how we can bring these technologies to the Southeast — and how they can actually help growers be more efficient, more sustainable, and more economically successful,” said Luan Oliveira, Precision Agriculture Specialist with UGA.

A CROSSROADS FOR AGRICULTURE

The timing of the conference couldn’t be more relevant. Producers across the region are navigating record-high input costs while working with an ever-shrinking amount of available farmland — a combination that makes efficiency not just beneficial, but essential.

“Agriculture is at a real crossroads across the country, but particularly here in the southern United States. We have got to come up with ways to more effectively produce the food and fiber to feed a growing world,” said Dr. Michael Toews, Associate Dean for Extension at UGA. “This is the opportunity for us to introduce some of those technologies to our growers that will adopt them and allow us to get over that hurdle — and mind you, that’s on less and less land each year. So we have to get more and more efficient, as well as meet that growing population. It’s critically important that we continue this march forward.”

DATA BEFORE THE DECISION

That march forward does come with a higher startup cost — which is exactly why events like this one matter. Producers can evaluate the latest data before committing to new technology, weighing both performance and return on investment.

“Agriculture is a highly scientific field, and it is critically important that we look at all these new technologies — not just from the perspective of how well they work, but the scalability, so that we can use them to feed a growing country,” Toews said.

Oliveira echoed that sentiment, noting that ROI remains one of the most pressing questions for growers considering adoption. “How reliable is it? What is the return on investment? When is the ROI? Is there an ROI? How much is the return on a machine like that?” he said.

EFFICIENCY THAT ADDS UP

For at least one technology on display, the numbers are starting to make a compelling case. Field robots like the Leaf Deck may move slowly — topping out at one to two miles per hour — but the savings they generate in chemicals, labor, and fertilizer tell a different story.

“What we’re talking about here is truly efficient — on chemical savings, on labor savings, on fertilizer savings. That’s the efficiency we’re talking about,” Oliveira said.

THE FUTURE IS ALREADY HERE

For UGA’s agricultural leaders, the conference also served as a reminder of just how far the industry has come — and how central technology has become to staying competitive.

“Agriculture and technology are almost synonymous. You have to be invested in technology in order to stay in business,” Toews said. “First and foremost, farmers are businessmen. In order to stay productive, you have to constantly be looking at what the next attribute is going to be that will allow your farm to continue to produce food and fiber for a growing world. Agriculture today is about sensors, controls, and satellites — we have some of the most cutting-edge approaches going on right now.”

For Georgia’s growers, the message from Tifton was clear: the technology is here, the data is growing, and the farms that embrace it will be the ones best positioned to thrive in the years ahead.

By: Damon Jones

Georgia Corn Comeback? Farmers Prepare for 2025 Amid Rising Costs & Drought Challenges

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Tifton, GA |

After seeing a significant drop in acres of corn being planted in Georgia last year, those numbers look to be on the rebound in 2025, especially with the issues other crops around the state are experiencing.

“I think that given some of the constraints with some of the other commodities, that we’re probably going to see an increase in corn acreage this year. I have a prediction but we’ll see if it comes to fruition this year, but I think there’s going to be a significant increase with the crop,” says Nicholas Shay, Extension Grains Agronomist.

Despite seeing prices surge by more than thirty percent over the past six months, growers must still walk a fine line in order to turn a profit, especially with the ever-increasing cost of production.

“To navigate that, we have to try to really manage our input efficiency the best we can, and really go back to the drawing board and count our pennies to make sure that we’re being as efficient as possible with our agronomic management or crop management plan in that, for the season,” says Shay.

Another major issue for growers is the long periods of dry weather throughout the state each and every year. It’s a factor that should always be accounted for when planning crop management.

“I think we can bet that every single year, there has been some sort of level of intermittent drought that has occurred. And so, I think really staying on top of your nutrient management and understanding how a crop responds to drought or to a treatment or a fertilizer application that you’re going to apply in the growing season,” says Shay.

The biggest defense against drought conditions is to implement preventative strategies as soon as possible.

“We have to prepare that crop for those stressful environments instead of reacting to a common symptom entomology we may see in the field. If we’d be proactive and have a proactive mitigation strategy, then maybe we can alleviate some of that stress in the growing season, especially when it comes to drought,” says Shay.

With that in mind, it’s never too early to start preparing, especially with planting season right around the corner.

“Growers should obviously be focusing on making sure their equipment is ready, land preparation this time of year, making sure that they have a good plan in place to start the year as far as fertility, as far as weed management, preparing that ground. Then making sure that they have that plan A, plan B in place to be proactive in their approach to mitigate those midseason or early season stresses that we can almost expect are going to occur,” says Shay.

By: Damon Jones

Precision Agriculture Conference Aims to Advance Agriculture Industry

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Athens, GA

With the rise of input costs, challenges with labor, and many other issues that arise, farmers and producers are looking for ways to be as efficient as possible on the farm. To help with that, the University of Georgia created the Institute for Integrative Precision Agriculture and recently gathered researchers, industry professionals, and producers together to begin working towards solutions for those issues.

“A year ago, the University of Georgia created the Institute of Integrative Precision Agriculture. We have fifty-six members, and we hope to get them integrated with our farmers and our industry people, to be able to solve the pressing and current problems that we have. So, this is a forum to exchange ideas, to form teams, and start working on these problems,” says George Vellidis, a professor at UGA. 

During the conference, attendees got the chance to hear from several speakers, one of which was Jessica Kirk, who helps run her family’s farm in Tifton. Kirk spoke about the need for innovation and how it could help them on their farm.

“We are a diversified farming operation. We grow about 6500 acres of produce year-round. Everything from watermelons and cantaloups to fifteen different varieties of specialty peppers. We have a greenhouse operation where we grow around 275 to 280 million, transplants that we ship out all over the United States and then we have a pine seedling operation where we go about 90 million pine tree seedlings,” says Jessica Kirk, Vice-President of Food Safety at Lewis Taylor Farms. 

Kirk says one of their biggest challenges on the farm is labor, as most of the work they do has to be done by hand due to technology and machinery not being advanced enough. 

“Everything we do from transplanting that product from our greenhouse into the field to the harvesting process which goes from our field, into our packing facility, all of that is done by hand. It can’t be done with machinery that we currently have, the technology has not made it to where we need it to be um, for produce, because the standards that grocery stores have, um, will not allow for things that are harvested with machinery to come in. It damages the product too much, so in the end, you end up losing product instead of getting into market. 

According to Kirk, the issue that comes with so much manual labor and the reason they’d like to see innovation, is the cost of that labor, as wages have increased drastically; this year by fifteen percent alone. 

“With the cost of workers, the H-2A workers we bring in rising so tremendously over this past year, about fifteen percent, anyway that we can use in the field from planting, putting those transplants in the ground, laying plastic, to um, in our greenhouse operations where we have, um, all of our trays where we have to sanitize them, where we’re using our machinery to make sure everything is planted properly into those trays to put into our greenhouses, all of those are bringing in, you know, more people and it costs more money, so anyway we can lower those costs, by adding innovation, by adding other systems that can do it much more quickly and maybe with less people would be a win-win for us. 

By: John Holcomb