By Nellie Hill
Peanut butter, salted peanuts, peanut brittle, peanut flour and chocolate-coated peanuts. These are just a few of the common products we might think of made from peanuts. What about salad oil? Laundry soap? Mayonnaise? Or even Chili sauce? These other common household staples are also made with peanuts.
The importance of peanuts on the Llano is made evident through the history of the Texas Peanut Producers Board. It is the state of Texas’ oldest agricultural commodity board. This board has been aiding producers in growing a tasty, nutritional, and profitable peanut crop each year since 1969. The board also educates the public on the many values of adding peanuts to a healthy diet.
Texas peanut producers harvest approximately 160,000 acres and 400 million pounds of peanuts each year. The industry is worth about $1 billion to the state’s economy. The Texas Peanut Producers Board is right in the thick of peanut country, headquartered in Lubbock, Texas.
Texas, specifically, west Texas is a great place to grow peanuts because of the sandy soil. This is conductive to the needs of healthy peanut plants. Many producers grow several varieties, depends on contracts year to year and producer preference. Producers must take into account the weather, land, seed costs, and many other variables to decide on each year’s crop. This past harvest year, producers predominately grew the runner peanut variety, follow by the Virginia variety. Peanuts are planted in April or May and harvested late October to early November, before the first frost.
Once harvested, many Texas peanuts are shipped off to manufacturing companies out of the state. According to the Texas Peanut Producers Board, this is due to the high quality of Texas grown peanuts.
To learn more about Texas peanuts, the Texas Peanut Producers Board website.
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