William McElveen is PPA winner for upper Southeast

Tag : Long Peanut


After a short but successful tenure as a high school historyteacher and football coach in Bishopville, S.C., McElveen came tounderstand he was living the wrong professional dream.

With a John Deere 4010 tractor and a few acres of land, he beganfarming part time to supplement his meager teaching and coachingwages. From that humble beginning, his farming operation has grownto 600 acres of peanuts, 500 acres of cotton, 500 acres of corn,500 acres of wheat and 1,000 acres of soybeans, some of which isdouble-cropped behind wheat.

McElveen is being honored this year as the Farm Press PeanutProfitability Award winner for the Upper Southeast States.

He farms with his son Will, who says his father never lost hisknack for teaching people how to do things and his ability to coachthem to do it right. Everything I know about farming I learnedfrom my father, Will says.

The old coach tells the story a little differently. If I've hadany success in farming it's because I listen to people who knowwhat they are doing, and I adapt what they tell me to my farmingoperation, he says

For example, I used to patch equipment up in the field and go backto work, usually stopping several times to get it fixed. When Willcame back to the farm, he said, no, when a piece of equipmentbreaks down, let's take it back to the equipment shed and fix itright. Will was right and I was wrong and now we have less troublewith mechanical breakdowns, the senior McElveen explains.

A key to his success has been his ability to find, train and mostimportantly keep good labor. We have five people who work with uson the farm. They have all been with us a long time, they workhard, and know what they are doing, he says.

What is evident, but what McElveen humbly doesn't say is hisworkers are well coached and well trained.

When he made the decision to give up his dream of being a footballcoach and teacher, McElveen had meager resources to put it mildly.In addition, his wife, Dianne, was pregnant with Will at the time.Talk about risk in farming, he laughs, it's nothing new to me.

Though the vast majority of peanut production in South Carolina isfrom growers who have been in the business for less than fiveyears, McElveen is the exception, having grown peanuts for morethan 25 years.

Profitability in peanuts is directly tied to timeliness. When theexperts say spray right now, you've got to be ready to go. However,they are looking at spraying small acres in test plots, and we arespraying big acres. We have 600 acres of peanuts, so it takes sometime to do anything to all our acres of peanuts, according toMcElveen.

The key is taking the information, for fungicide spraying, forexample, and adapting the recommended spray schedule to your ownoperation. You have to be flexible and adapt information to whatworks best for your farm, the veteran peanut grower says.

Case in point, on May 19 McElveen was trying desperately to finishplanting peanuts. He started on May 6, exactly when Clemson PeanutSpecialist Jay Chapin says plant, but weather didn't cooperate,spreading planting out over two weeks. On May 19, wind isn'tusually a problem in South Carolina's Pee Dee Region, but on thisday gusts of 20-25 miles per hour made spraying herbicides behindthe planter impossible.

Being adaptable, McElveen planted the peanuts and will come backand spray when he sprays cotton. The key, he says, is to get theherbicide on as quickly as possible after planting. In our case,in this year, spraying 2-3 days after planting was the only coursepossible, he explains.

At a time when most folks are gearing up for retirement, McElveenis still going strong. Planting peanuts, finding cotton seed thatwere supposed to be delivered, but weren't, switching planters frompeanuts to cotton all in a days work. All a part of the dreamWilliam McElveen is living out.

Whether 25 years of growing peanuts makes William McElveen the deanof South Carolina peanuts may be a stretch, but certainly he is oneof the state's longest running producers.

Growing peanuts today is nothing like it was 25 years ago. Heavenforbid, we couldn't have continued this long without all thetechnological changes that have come along. And, we wouldn't havebeen able to stay in the peanut business profit-wise withoutadapting these changes to our own situation, he says.

When we started growing peanuts, we used a four-row planter. Now,we use two eight-row planters, McElveen says. Getting bigger iseasy, getting bigger and staying profitable is not nearly so easy,he adds.

How well a grower is able to adapt equipment from growing peanutsto cotton to corn to soybeans or any other crop sounds simple, butit's not. Neither is seeing a farmer down the road be successfulwith a new technique, trying it, then having to admit it's notright for your situation, he says.

For example, we read about and talked to our neighbors aboutstrip-tilling peanuts. For some folks it works well, saves fuel andtime, but for us it didn't work. Last year, we had to make our cropat harvest time, because the drought limited the amount of peanutswe had at picking time. We had trouble getting our peanuts out ofthe ground on the land we strip-tilled. Our soil is just not suitedto it. McElveen contends the biggest yield loss most peanutfarmers have comes in the digging and picking process. Timing iscritical, but you just can't stop everything else to pick peanuts,he says. Even though we may be picking peanuts in one field, weare still spraying peanuts in another location,he says. On theone had you have to be timely in peanut production. On the otherhand, you have to be thorough with all your crops.

He says giving peanuts, or any crop, a good start is another key toprofitability. We put Temik at 5 pounds per acre in the furrowwith the planter, and we feel like that gives our peanuts a goodstart. We include Asset to help with root formation and OptimizeLift at planting, he adds.

Though many long-time peanut growers in neighboring states have haddebilitating losses from disease, McElveen says being diversifiedhas helped with peanut rotations, but the real key to avoidingdisease problems is again, timeliness.

At 45 days we begin with an application of Bravo and Tilt, givingus two different families of fungicides. At 60 days, we come backwith Provost, giving us another family of fungicides. At 75 days wespray with Abound and at 90 days with Provost and my last spraywill be another application of Bravo,McElveen explains.

Growing peanuts in combination with grain crops can be aneconomical blessing in 2008. With commodity prices high and peanutcontracts good, the opportunity is clearly there for farmers tohave a good year. However, all the tools needed to grow those crops diesel fuel, fertilizer, seed, pesticides have all gone upfaster than commodity prices.

What the American public doesn't understand when they see allthese media reports about record high commodity prices andincreasing food prices, is that to grow these crops, the farmer hasto accept much higher risks. A drought, a flood or some othernatural disaster beyond a farmer's ability to manage can take himout of business in today world, McElveen says.

I am an optimist I don't see how farmers can stay in businesswithout being optimistic. Taking risks is one of the components ofliving the American dream, McElveen says.