Green Peanut Harvest Underway

While it only makes up a tiny percentage of Alabama’s peanut crop, green peanuts have their fans.

“I buy them at the store ready to eat,” says field hand Charlotte Rivers. “I take me some home from out here.” She works to get that green peanut harvest out of the ground. Members of the cooperative extension office say green peanuts only make up about five percent of the total peanut harvest state wide. Here on the Sessions farm seven acres are used for green peanuts out of 300 total acres.

These peanuts are harvested and dug green,” says farmer Jeremy Sessions. “So that they're sold right away, we don't allow them to dry any.” The nuts aren’t green in color. Green refers to their early harvest. Sessions says green peanuts keep him busy between the end of the watermelon harvest and the wait for the cotton harvest.

The nuts are harvested through a three step process. First an inverter pulls them out of the ground. Then workers hand-pick them and toss the nuts into buckets. Finally the peanuts are washed, bleached and cooled before being sold.