Perennial Peanuts more than double, The Alfalfa of the south for animal Feed. Farmer thoughout this presentation is joined by Clay Olsen Univ Florida Ext. Agent










Perennial peanuts have been called the "Florida's alfalfa" because it has nutritional value for animals similar to alfalfa. Additionally, rhizoma perennial peanut has proved to be long-lived, drought tolerant, relatively disease and insect pest free, and does not require nitrogen fertilization. Video one below is the untreated fields of perennial peanuts, this is the text of that conversation.

Farmer: If you look at that and see what kind of organization we have got on here.

Soysoap Dealer: This field is untreated with Soysoap.

Farmer: Untreated and I don't spray a little she got big rings and soil is pretty moist so the soil is not falling off too easy, but you kind of really look here close to find very little nodulation here. I don't see much new way a new root.

Farmer: These are modified underground stems of Rhizomes, this is floor grazed Perennial peanut forage grains variety. One of the two main forage varieties, A real thick Rhizome at and then you see how peanut will come out of the Rhizome, stems and leaves here. So Rhizomes are relatively healthy that's a real good.

Soysoap Dealer: And this is untreated?

Farmer: This is untreated.

Soysoap Dealer: This has never been sprayed with the Soysoap?

Farmer: Never.

Soysoap Dealer: And I noticed walking through the perennials that it's that my boot just kind of swings right through it and walking through yours Soysoap treated on the other side, I have to push my foot through it because it's so heavy.

Farmer: Yes.

Soysoap Dealer: It's so thick.

Farmer: Where height wise it's, you know what's that five (5) inches maybe.

Soysoap Dealer: Your neighbor Richard peanuts normally come in sooner than you?

Farmer: No these fields are same soil, pretty much the same fertilization and herbicide routine.

Perennial Peanuts Untreated with Soysoap, This is the control





Soysoap Dealer: So tell me how many times did you spray this with the product? And how were you introduced to the product? And why did you decide to spray it out on your Perennial Peanut?

Farmer: Well I saw the product in a Progressive farmer and I was interested in making herbicides more effective and I thought it was resistance for the Pussley weed in this field. That was the main thing, the other thing was if we can get something to help peanuts bounce back faster after the herbicides we put on it, it does not as long and usually we see you know two and a half three weeks where kind of it really slows down cutting our growing seeds and so we first put it out with Impose which is same as Cadre and some 2,4-D and we mixed first time four ounces of Soysoap and that then probably two and half weeks later we came back with another eight ounces of Soysoap.

Farmer: We are about ready to go.

Farmer: It's got leaf all the way.

Farmer: All the way to the bottom leaves are bigger; stems are a little bit like stems are a little bit bigger you know all that is going to lead to.

Soysoap Dealer: Have ever seen hay that looks his good?

Farmer: I've never seen this field look -.

Soysoap Dealer: This field?

Farmer: Yeah I've never seen this field look this good, its - I mean all the seeds keep growing and get taller but it's a real, it's a real furrow dark green and very healthy. You know to see, you have to look really hard to see in the plant, furrows and leaves are all a lot bigger and a lot uniform.

Soysoap Dealer: How did it do on your weeds?

Farmer: Smoke pigweeds were this tall? I don't see any standing you might look around and find some if there is any left or they haven't all shriveled up and totally dried up and died. Might find something here, but it's smoke most pigweeds and mostly Pussley and weeds in here should have been sprayed a lot earlier, they weren't - they were past the size and all that spraying.

Soysoap Dealer: When you sprayed it out with herbicide did you know - how long did it take for the blooms to come back?

Farmer: This field was a full bloom it blooms really heavy twice. Once after it comes out of dormancy start growing, start warming up at night, and the soil warms up it will bloom real heavy, and we hit it after - right in the middle of that bloom with an herbicide. And it was back in full bloom in a week which just caught my attention on my test so we went in and sprayed everything after that.

Soysoap Dealer: So how much taller is the Perennial Peanut on this field versus that it's been sprayed twice versus the other field? About three inches

Farmer: Well I think it's the at least double in height.

Soysoap Dealer: Double?

Farmer: Yeah it's up here and that's it's pushing 9, 10 inches and I have to get a tape measure out and measure this.

Soysoap Dealer: You think that's due to the Soysoap?

Farmer: That's the only thing I can think it's due to.

Farmer: I'm going to get these coffers will just come passed us, and it will just totally clear it out. I hate to do this when it's tall, is a lot drier on the lose - losing the roots. I want to break off, yeah like that see if you can - what of - all the - look at this new, they're really fine and new roots to breaking off because the weight of the soil but, see here that's what I'm interested in. This is an old field - this field is 25 years old at least, it's one of the first real full hay production perennial peanuts fields around and most of all the other records in Florida and South Georgia, it just comes out of the root stalk of these field here.

Soysoap Dealer: Really, so the universities out here study in this field all the time?

Farmer: Well there used to be a lot, do a lot of more studying and it really help Mr. Paul probably helped him get going you get that, and this are just -.

Soysoap Dealer: That just something that you just don't normally see.

Farmer: I don't normally see the root growth out here and this field gotten so old and we drive over is kind of gotten - you look at it like a popdown down plant and most the roots.

Soysoap Dealer: That's interesting so like a popdown plant, you mean like a plant that has no more room to grow?

Farmer: No more room, look at this rising that, look at this - you'll like to see this, look at this grub.

Soysoap Dealer: That's good.

Farmer: That's good. It means we've got good soil medium down there look at this the nodules so we - we didn't see on the other, do you look at that?

Soysoap Dealer: That's nodulation.

Farmer: Nodulation, I mean we would like to see it better but that's a -.

Soysoap Dealer: That's protein.

Farmer: That's a dramatic improvement.

Soysoap Dealer: Protein is what you're producing this hay for horses, because it's going to a supremium great product for horses and race horses.

Farmer: Yeah working horses, carting horses, show horses. I mean we feed all the all sorts goats and - what not but that's the main market.

Soysoap Dealer: This roots look beautiful compared to the other side.

Farmer: Look at the new roots.

Soysoap Dealer: I'm going to -.

Farmer: Can you look at the stems are getting a little larger, it' a leaf all the way up and down the plant, you know we will cut this plant about right there, then that is going to be beautiful hay. And then what we did - we went over the new field and dug a hole when this dried and just dramatically different. So yeah I'm going over there we spray it and see if I can dig one hole over there so finally it will be better looking or it start to improve, but I mean it's I'm telling here he is going to get out the Mariana he is going to stay tonight in lake park, but I just going to get to Mariana and after we mess around a little bit and more than that to meet up over here at dig some holes and take a look this. Yeah its very neat. I'll see if I can - this don't dry up to bad, the color will go whenever they dry, but you can see all - keep this a little bit I want to smell the hole I'm digging. It's pretty neat, all right.

Perennial Peanuts Treated with Soysoap





Soysoap Dealer: University of Florida County Extenstion Agent Clay Olsen, Perennial Peanut master.

Farmer: Hey what did you think?

Univ Florida Ext agent: Yeah.

Soysoap Dealer: What's up Buddy?

Univ Florida Ext agent: Sir.

Soysoap Dealer: What do you think?

Univ Florida Ext agent: It looks really good, it's really good. It's clean as I've ever seen it as far as weed control.

Soysoap Dealer: Go ahead.

Univ Florida Ext agent: Okay this is a crop called perennial peanut it is grown in Florida and other tropical areas South Eastern coastal plains from Brownsville, Texas up probably to South Carolina. These fields here have been planted probably since mid 80's so they are old and they've never been replanted, they've never had renovation done to them. Effects in decline in productivity it's a very excessively drained soil, we have a field of about 75 acres on that side that has not been treated with soap this side has been. The soap was applied with some herbicide and a light application of folia nutrients of 5 or at 9 15 30 at about maybe two pounds of the acre two and a half pounds of the acre. We are with the owner of this and has been cutting this for a number of years as well and he is really excited about what he sees with this Soysoap. The yield of this - you see today is June 23 - 24, 2011 and the soap has been out here for 30 days and we have almost twice the production on this side of the field as we came on that side that has not been sprayed with soap. Word for advice these are pretty much the same herbicide treatment on that side as well as on this side cadre, 2-4 D, amine and so we are seeing some pretty dramatic increases in production. We've had pretty dry weather I think farmer was saying this field only had an inch and a half of water in the past thirty days.

Univ Florida Ext agent: Of natural rain we have done some irrigation just to keep it going but the soap seems to enhance the drought tolerance to the crop. It certainly has enhanced the productivity like we said by about 50% so you can see this; the hay has been cut down here. This hay will go into the horse hay market and probably on the order of ten dollars - ten dollar retail value or actually wholesale per bale. So we are a little bit early this year for cutting so we hope to enhance the overall yield but you know season long. So farmer wanted to show us the roots the Farmer is a soil scientist and really interested in what is going on in the soil and in the root thing is - one of the other good things about this.

Univ Florida Ext agent: And the other good is that as it enhances growth it also has a retarding effect on other pests and insects. We wouldn't normally be kneeling down on a hay field like this we'd be afraid of fire ants or something like that but we are not having that. Farmer also mentioned some compaction going on because of the repeated travelling over this field with hay equipment.

TheSoysoap Dealer: tends to open up this soil also and help it to breath and help it to put on new roots. So here we have this is a rhizomatous crop not planted from seed so it's perenniating year to year with basically the same crop basically the same root structure. And so we are seeing a lot of some new growth coming out in here that typically wasn't there before so we are excited about what this soap is doing to this crop underground and above ground.

Farmer: Got new roots.

Univ Florida Ext agent: Got a lot of - yeah a lot of brand new roots growing up, a lot of brand new roots so you can see how sandy this soil is and again -.

Soysoap Dealer: How dry it is.

Univ Florida Ext agent: How dry it is, we got a heck of a right - look at how long that brand new root is right there that's really - that's screaming. So again we are having great productivity, we are excited about what's going on we hope to have some data by the end of the season to give some type of economic data to what is actually happening. What it cost us to put this soap out and what kind of return we got from it so pretty sandy soil, huh?

Soysoap Dealer: Very sandy.

Univ Florida Ext agent: Yeah so did I forget anything what else you want to say?

Soysoap Dealer: It sounds pretty good.

Farmer: I notice every week I come out here there's something new I'm on the phone calling you about that I can't believe what's going on. It's really - peanuts are really taking off. I've had this field for I think this is the tenth year and we've done-.

Univ Florida Ext agent: Ten years?

Farmer: Ten years we've done pretty decent by everyone else's standards as far as really sandy soil and yield wise, but it's really taken off I've never seen a peanut -.

Soysoap Dealer: How about weed control mixing the product with weed control?

Univ Florida Ext agent: Good point, we got a really good weed control using eight ounces of the soap to the acre with the normal rates of cadre and 2-4 D. We are not expecting to control resistant pig weed but we are getting really good control on the rest of the pig weeds and all the other primarily annual weeds from pussley, coffee weed beggarweed whatever.

Soysoap Dealer: I think we also had less of a stress I think we reduced our down time from three weeks to one week.

Farmer: Yeah and the plant and there's - stem are slightly larger and the leaves are definitely larger and more numerous; they are all the way from the bottom to the top.

Univ Florida Ext agent: So when we put out herbicides normally we get a stress of at least two weeks sometimes as long as a month depending on what the weather is. So the other advantage to have on that soap on there is that recovers from the herbicide much quicker so again you are back into production sooner, your yields are increased and bottom line you know increased money for the farmer. So that's the bottom line that's what we are hoping to see. And it is 95 degrees out here it's hot so let's go.

Soysoap Dealer: Thank you.

Univ Florida Ext agent: Thank you

Perennial Peanuts Being Reviewed by Univ of Florida Ext. Agent





Farmer: It's not normally this, and there should be like a bunch of gaps in between that so wide I got it, and they are not. Yeah I think we are going to have to adjust our practices.

Soysoap Dealer: So for being at three weeks early it's awfully thick?

Farmer: Yeah.

Farmer: It's a very, very you might have some down your way. The only place that plot is in this county and over around out there. They've got a pretty good population going on here. Yeah, you see it make sure you don't hit that hole or else you bang your head on the ceiling.

Soysoap Dealer: Do you think there is a - they know there's something going on. They might be attracted to your field because of the thickness of the -

Farmer: Right, because it stays wide open like a nest out here.

Soysoap Dealer: You know I think that's a good selling feature.

Farmer: You have a state, a state listed animal living on your field.

Soysoap Dealer: Not, not good.

Farmer: Man this is it, I mean this is it, this is.

Soysoap Dealer: Yeah.

Farmer: That's got way more tonnage, you know? We are going to have to watch how much acreage we cut out at once because I'm going to be out here picking up hay until midnight. We'll weigh out wide and see how it goes.

Soysoap Dealer: So Farmer, how wide of a cutter do you have?

Farmer: It's almost 10 foot.

Soysoap Dealer: Yeah, and do you have it all powered all the way right now?

Farmer: Well it's set up we don't having it laying its full width; we can lay a little wider. And the peanut over, this end of the field where we are right now, the irrigation is not really hitting it

Soysoap Dealer: It is still solid.

Farmer: So it's a little bit dry this summer, rains, but still the stuff is pretty dang good.

Soysoap Dealer: What were you saying about being able to see holes?

Farmer: When you look down the as we go by, usually you can tell you've got your you're laying it too wide out of the mower, if you can see there.

Soysoap Dealer: A lot of holes.

Farmer: You see the holes in the ground and the peanut that they are very few even here when this is thin.

Soysoap Dealer: Even on the thin side.

Farmer: Yeah, which means we've just got more leaves.

Soysoap Dealer: Yeah.

Farmer: Stop right here this is a thin spot and we put in the whole width.

Soysoap Dealer: You're going put your cutter all the way out as far as it will go?

Farmer: Year the wind, yeah it's going to lay it down wide as it.

Soysoap Dealer: Why is it though because your peanut is so thick. I've noticed a lot of leave on your peanut too. A lot of leaf.

Farmer: You can say that.

Perennial Peanuts Riding in the Tractor



Perennial Peanuts Harvest Video













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