I have to do it. Sure, there were lots of suggestions for C words that are important parts of agriculture and in fact, Kim Parsell gave me a whole list!

KentFarms _LA lobbied for cattle (Angus cattle to be clear) and several people echoed that cows would be a perfect choice and others suggested corn. To do an agricultural A to Z without highlighting my favorite fiber — cotton — as the letter of the day, well, it is unthinkable. And I tried. Seriously. There was a great suggestion from Angel Steffan who left a comment pointing to “C is for Cultivation. Not only the land before be plant, but we need to cultivate young minds interest in Agriculture.” That’s a compelling plea.

But I have to say, I started blogging in large part because when I got on Twitter, I settled on the name @JPlovesCOTTON because it was personal (some dear high school friends called me JP) and it connected me to agriculture through the crop I know best (cotton). Cotton is a passion for me as well as a crop — it comes with a great community of cotton farmers, ginners, merchants, warehousemen, textile manufacturers and more.

But remember, less than 2% of Americans farm and when you look at cotton, it comes down to .006% of us are engaged in cotton farming (thanks to Shawn the magnificent at the National Cotton Council for doing that math!) If someone who has a daily awareness of cotton doesn’t make a point of saying COTTON ROCKS, who should I expect to do that? And you can’t forget all the people who buy cotton products whether or not they produce the crop! I’m wearing jeans and a cotton/silk blend sweater today so I am squarely in the happy consumer camp!

Right now, cotton farmers are looking at the weather forecasts and trying to decide when soils will be warm enough for planting. Cotton seeds do better in warm weather — if it is too cool or too wet, disease can be a problem and that leaves the plant susceptible to a variety of problems throughout the season, but farmers want to plant as early as possible as they look to harvest before winter weather or hurricane seasons hit.

Cotton is a big part of this blog — in fact I have a Cotton 101 page devoted to some of the basics of my favorite crop that highlights posts including:

Cotton is not only a great crop, but it makes incredible fabrics! Textile mills have figured out how to make so many different types of fabric out of the fiber. I really love sweatshirts and jeans! Cotton flannel makes the best PJs and sheets for sleeping in winter!

D is for….

Tomorrow (Thurssday) is the day for the letter “D” so what do you think the word of the day should be?

See the other posts in this series by clicking on the logo at right and reviewing the letters, or by browsing the A to Z ag tag archives. You should also feel free to add ideas for upcoming letters!