When I was thinking about doing this, it was letters like Q, X and Z that made me wonder if I could really do it. The video I shot as I showed a friend around Memphis came to mind quickly. Although Steve had worked in cotton for years off and on, seeing how cotton was tested for quality was new for him. As he soaked up all the things that he was being told. I wandered around shooting photos and video but somehow I failed to share it.

It’s important to note that while I have never worked for the USDA classing cotton, I worked in Mississippi for a dozen years at a company that was breeding Deltapine cotton varieties for farmers and one of the important pieces of the research & development program was having a proprietary fiber testing lab.

This lab enabled us to test fiber more quickly than if it had to go into the line with all the samples going to the USDA labs. And although the lab wasn’t run by the USDA, it tested itself and submitted blind tests to the USDA for analysis to remain calibrated. This lab was one of the favorite spots on site tours. For a couple of reasons, one was seeing how this is done up close is just cool and the other was how awesomely comfortable it was with the constant temperature & humidity (something Mississippi is not known for!)

Every Bale is Sampled and Tested

Last year, US cotton farmers produced an estimated 17 million bales of cotton for use in a variety of products from jeans to dollar bills. As farmers harvest & gin that cotton, they know how much they have in approximately 480 pound bales but farmers won’t know how much their crop is worth until the lint is classified by the USDA fiber testing labs. The fiber quality testing or classification is important so that textile mills will be able to target the fiber they need for various types of textiles.

Cotton gins from across the Cotton Belt pull small samples from each bale and the barcode tag that is placed on that bale has a stub that goes with the sample to the classing office.

How the Labs Work

The classing labs bring in samples from gins in their area, bags full of samples arrive and each sample it taken out and allowed to adjust to the consistent temperature and humidity. This is really important because cotton’s elasticity and other factors can change if the cotton is wetter or drier. It works just like our t-shirts. Think about how much more a t-shirt will stretch out if you try to stretch it straight out of the shower vs how much it stretches out if you’ve been sweating in it for a while!

Cotton Quality Tests Run

Once the cotton is at the specific temperature and humidity, technicians run a variety of tests that will help cotton merchants and buyers. The parameters include:

• Length 
• Uniformity
• Micronaire
• Strength
• Color
• Trash/Foreign Matter

Questions on Fiber Quality?

R, S, T, U & the Rest of the Alphabet Coming Soon!

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! I’m pretty pumped about getting caught back up here and getting this on its merry way!

Related articles

• How Much Cotton is in That Field or Module?
• Cotton Rally Encouraging Farmers to Sow More Than USDA Forecast – Bloomberg
• Alabama cotton producers look to improve on record-high 2012 yields
• Top Cotton Blogs You Should be Following

The post Fiber Quality Testing on Every Bale of US Cotton VIDEO appeared first on Hundred Percent Cotton.

I can remember a time when I thought of dirt as something that only seemed to change about it was the color. I had noticed it when my family took vacations and even in looking at the soils in my grandparent’s yard since grandmom was an avid composter. But when I moved from Memphis to Enid, Oklahoma, the color change was so stark with the red soils totally disconnecting from the browns I had always called home. 

Sure it was before I started working in agriculture, which has been a long time but those memories are clear. It wasn’t until I got to know farmers that I began to understand some of those differences and the meaning behind them. And it wasn’t until I lived in a farming community and called loam soils home that I really began to understand. So while this could be the post for the letter “s,” I think it works well for “l.”

If you aren’t familiar with various soil types, the experts I turn to are farmers, crop consultants, extension specialists & agents and members of the Soil Science Association of America. In fact, the SSAA has a great website that tells the story of soil. And I have an “I <3 soils” sticker from the effort on the bulletin board at the office.

Understanding Soils

The way soils were formed has a big impact on their appearance, the nutrients and more. I played around thinking about what sort of information to share on soils and loams in particular and found a great resource for basic soils information from the Queensland (Australia) government. So I guess there’s no reason to recreate this  info when they put it into words so well!

Soil is the thin layer of material covering the earths surface and is formed from the weathering of rocks. It is made up mainly of mineral particles, organic materials, air, water and living organisms—all of which slowly yet constantly interact.

Most plants get their nutrients from the soil and in turn, are the main source of food for humans, animals and birds. Therefore, most living things on land depend on soil for their very existence.

Soil is a valuable resource that needs to be carfeully managed as it is easily damaged or washed or blown away. If we understand soil and manage it properly, we will avoid destroying one of the essential building blocks of our envrionment and our food security.

via Understanding soil (Department of Natural Resources and Mines).

There is also a good handout on soils available from Penn State.

Who needs good soil?

A lot of people may answer the question of “who needs good soil?” with things like “farmers” or “gardners” but I suggest good soils are critical for all of us and it is inherent on all of us to protect them. That kind of dedication is clear on the I Love Soil site when it says:

Soil is an amazing substance. It is a complex mix of ingredients: minerals, air, water, and organic matter—the countless micro-organisms and the decaying remains of once living things. Soil is made of life and soil makes life.

To the farmer, soil is where crops grow.

To the engineer, soil is a foundation to build.

To the ecologist, soil supports and connects ecosystems.

To the archaeologist, soil holds clues to past cultures.

To craftspeople, like potters, soil provides clay to make things.

To the soil scientist, soil is all of these things.

Soil has been called “the skin of the earth” because it is the thin outermost layer of the Earth’s crust.

Like our own skin, we can’t live without soil.

via The Story of Soil | I Heart Soil.

What is a loamy soil?

Since I wrote this because loams prompted my more detailed awareness in the importance of soil a couple of decades ago, I figure I should explain loams. This definition of loamy from the Soil Science Association may leave a question or two for folks who haven’t studied soils, but I have to serve up what the experts say and I think its a good start:

loamy (i) Texture group consisting of coarse sandy loam, sandy loam, fine sandy loam, very fine sandy loam, loam, silt loam, silt, clay loam, sandy clay loam, and silty clay loam soil textures. See also soil texture. (ii) Family particle-size class for soils with textures finer than very fine sandy loam but <35% clay and <35% rock fragments in upper subsoil horizons.

So loams are a whole group of soils, just like clay soils then on the spectrum you get the combinations of the two. The photo here shows the silt loam soils that became a familiar feeling underneath my feet during my years in the Mississippi Delta. Those silt loam soils (aka ice cream soils) are perfect for planting cotton! And we are getting to planting time which is a time of great promise and hope for farmers, even if planting is running late due to the cold spring.

Ideas?

M, N, O, P, Q and R are for ____

I’d love to know what your thoughts are on loams and other soils. This week I will be writing M, N, O, P, Q and R posts. Yes, we are on the downward slope will be brought to you by the group of letters I mentioned, 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!

Related articles

• Soil Testing: Type of Soil
• Day One. Saving Topsoil
• F is for Farmer! – An A to Z Challenge in Agriculture
• C is for Cotton – an A to Z Series about Agriculture

The post L is for Loam, Love Great Silt Loam Soils appeared first on Hundred Percent Cotton.

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!

The post C is for Cotton — an A to Z Series about Agriculture appeared first on Hundred Percent Cotton.

I love a day that starts with a friend alerting me to some cottony goodness! That’s exactly what happened today as I checked in on Facebook and saw that my good friend Carrie Mess aka DairyCarrie had tagged me in a post! It read simply “Hey Janice look what’s in this month’s American Airlines magazine.” and showed this photo:

I did what any self-respecting cotton lover would do — searched the net til I found the article online so I could read it! The American Airlines magazine American Way is online, so it just took a little searching to find the Kings of Cotton article. The article starts:

“See, Wade? Look at the weeds in there.” Ben Ivey steers his pickup around the edge of a cotton field. “Are we gonna spray some more? You probably need to.” Ben’s son, Wade, sitting in the back of the truck, just nods. He knows the weeds will be a problem at harvest if they mix with the cotton bolls.

Wade is the fourth generation to farm this land at the edge of El Paso, Texas — and possibly the last. In good years, the Iveys grow Pima cotton fine enough for a Brooks Brothers shirt. But this year, two-thirds of their farmland near the Rio Grande is sitting idle because of the drought. The city is encroaching too. The Ivey farm is the last inside the city limits of El Paso. “Last year, all this was in cotton,” Ben says as the truck lurches over a dirt road by empty fields.

Ben heads back to the family’s battered old ranch office two miles north of the border, steering past a Wal-Mart and warehouses built on their land. Trucks from Mexico whiz by on Loop 375, the massive border highway that encircles El Paso. The Iveys — savvy businessmen as well as farmers — gave up land for the highway, keeping a big parcel for future development. But Ben Ivey is in no hurry to turn his cotton fields under for a shopping center. “Everybody in El Paso can’t figure us out,” he says, chuckling. “We farm valuable commercial corners. We’re probably stupid for not selling because of the money.” He turns the truck toward another plot of cotton and grins. “We like to farm.”

This is what makes America great.

This holiday season, when you wrap up that cotton shirt for Dad or that set of luxury cotton towels for Mom, think of growers like Ben and Wade who are working under drought conditions not seen since the 1950s. They grumble a lot — about Washington’s policies, local interference, water shortages … the usual stuff — but the Irish Iveys have been growing cotton in the high desert since the 1920s, and they are determined to keep the fields in their family another generation. “People these days have grown away from the land,” Ben says as he kneels down in a field, picking the yellow flower off a cotton plant. Beneath the flower is a green ball or “boll,” which will mature and split open to reveal the fluffy white stuff we know as raw cotton.

via Columnists 12-01-2012 :: AmericanWay.

The dilemma the Ivey’s face with urbanization is fairly common. And I admire the Ivey’s for choosing to do what they love rather than taking the easy paycheck and selling all of their farmland for commercial uses.

Christmas Gifts with Farm Origins

I agree! We should think about where our cottony good gifts come from! And I’ve got a few blog posts that may help you think through just that ahead of time!

The Ivey’s grow Pima cotton. Do you know what makes Pima cotton different? I mean otherwise it would say they grow cotton since the vast majority of cotton is upland. Pima is a premium fiber that is longer and stronger than upland. With Pima fiber, textiles can be woven differently and that results in a finer, smoother feel. In fact, my favorite hoodie zipup is Pima. If you’d like to know more about Pima, including what those blooms look like,  you can read this post.

And if you are interested in some of the Christmas presents I gave last year that started on a farm somewhere, well, there is a post for that too! I declared “Farmers Helped Me With My Christmas Shopping ” last year as I reflected on Christmas gifts with farm connections.

What’s one of your favorite gifts that has origins on the farm?

The post Your Brooks Brothers Shirt May Have Started in El Paso, Texas appeared first on Hundred Percent Cotton.

I have “liked” lot of brand pages on Facebook and have to admit, some of them eventually get unliked or hidden cause they just don’t seem to get the kinds of things I’d be interested to see from a brand. But some friends saw the Lee Jeans page this week and knew they had to call it to my attention. Jodi Oleen was the first to shout at me! And they were right! I was pumped! Look at the photo Lee Jeans shared!

So…. how many pairs of Lee Jeans can you make from one bale of cotton? Well, I’ll give you a hint that Lee didn’t give fans of its page. A bale of cotton weighs just under 500 pounds. With that hint I hope you don’t low ball it too badly. Some of the guesses on the Lee page were obviously not made with that factoid in mind cause I saw one or two guesses that assumed bales were the size of one on my bookshelf!

More than 1,200 people guessed – some of whom definitely did a little internet research. I have to wonder if some of them found an old post of mine where I gave a chart of how many of this or that you could make from a bale. For jeans, you can make 215 pairs! Here are some of the other quantities of various cotton items you can get from a bale of cotton, according to the National Cotton Council, one bale of cotton can make:

• 215 Pairs of Jeans
• 249 Bed Sheets
• 409 Men’s Sport Shirts
• 690 Terry Bath Towels
• 765 Men’s Dress Shirts
• 1,217 Men’s T-Shirts
• 1,256 Pillowcases
• 2,104 Boxer Shorts
• 2,419 Men’s Briefs
• 3,085 Diapers
• 4,321 Mid-Calf Socks
• 6,436 Women’s Knit Briefs
• 21,960 Women’s Handkerchiefs
• 313,600 $100 Bills

If I get to pick, I think I’ll take that last one! Yes, I will take the more than 300k $100 bills!

Another thing to note, bales used to be wrapped in that nice burlap. it helped keep cotton clean and was pretty cheap, well now, bales are wrapped in plastic bags. It keeps them clean, doesn’t run the risk of sticking to the lint (you wouldn’t want burlap fiber making it into your 500 count sheets!)

The post How many pairs of jeans in a bale of cotton?, Lee Jeans Asks appeared first on Hundred Percent Cotton.

I’m not sure how many of the events I watched during this summer’s Olympics. More than I should have probably, but I did watch a bit from the seat of a stationary bike so maybe it isn’t too bad. But as we watch the closing ceremony on Sunday, I bet we won’t see one of the new stars that was made. I mean cotton. What? You didn’t see it? I saw a whole lot of it but until cotton friend Wes Underwood drew it my attention to it, I hadn’t realized it.

photo via cc from mikep on Flicker

Okay, I know there was a lot of performance wear on athletes. You see uniforms know with slick stripes for aerodynamics or to help ensure they glide the swimmer through the water. Those aren’t cotton. And most of the athletes wore the gray jackets which also appeared to be mostly man-made materials. However, cotton was seen in the pool, on the volleyball and basketball courts, throughout track and field events, on soccer fields and more.

It’s everywhere: on abs, legs, backs, even backsides.

The neon tape swathing sprinters and swimmers alike, called Kinesio, is taking London by storm.

“It’s all over the Olympics,” said Dr. Jennifer Solomon of New York City’s Hospital for Special Surgery. “Athletes love it.”

Developed by a Japanese chiropractor, Kinesio claims to cut pain and boost performance. And judging by its prominence at this year’s Games, athletes think it works.

“If you ask them, they say it does,” said Solomon, team physician for the U.S. Tennis Association. “But there’s no solid scientific evidence that this tape helps.”

Crafted from cotton and medical grade adhesive, Kinesio is more flexible than traditional tape. And when strategically strewn along injured muscles, its gentle tug promotes circulation to help clear out damage, according to its maker.

via Injured Olympians Turn to Tape: The Sticky Science of Kinesio – ABC News.

Looking around to learn more I found more and more elaborate placings of the tape and find it interesting that the folks behind Kinesio do training sessions as the tape should be placed in certain ways based on the injury, muscles, joints, etc. Some of the designs at the Olympics have almost look artistic as you see six-packs striped and shoulders sculpted.

Kinesio describes the tape as “elastic therapeutic taping” as being made of gentle cotton fiber that can be worn for 3 to 5 days providing 24 hour treatment. On the website, they highlight several points on what it does on the website including:

• It creates a lifting effect on the skin’s surface, which improves circulation and relieves pain.
• It may be applied using different amounts and directions of tension, so the tape has the ability to relax or stimulate muscles.
• It does not limit the wearer?s range of motion.
• The distinctive wave-pattern weave moves with the wearer?s movements.

It seems that this is the latest thing athletes feel improves performance. It’s hard to tell where science ends and the power of positive thinking begins. And I bet this will be much like those necklaces you couldn’t help but notice in the World Series, they will be showing up on courts, diamonds, pools and all in our own neighborhoods. Products like this don’t have to be reviewed by the FDA (which reviews foods and drugs that make health claims) but it seems clear, athletes think these things make a difference and performance has such a mental component that maybe you see athletes excel if they’ve had a recent stress taped.

I have to say, I think this may be found in a lot of other areas of life, not just sports. If a mental or emotional component leads someone to think something is better, then it truly is better for them. It just may not translate to being better for all of us. And it may not be proved through science. There may be some science there, just not indesputable. On other things, full scientific packages have been reviewed and found solid by some and yet that still isn’t enough for others. A lack of scientific support surely doesn’t mean we won’t see it anymore.

Related articles

• What the Olympics Can Teach about Humanizing our Company Brand (brianvickery.com)
• Olympic Gymnastics and Branding – Deductions Keep You From the Gold (brianvickery.com)
• The Silent Star of the 2012 Olympics: Kinesio Tape (washingtonian.com)
• Kinesio tape: The latest Olympic accessory (cnn.com)

The post That Bright Tape so Many Olympic Athletes Have On is Made of Cotton! appeared first on Hundred Percent Cotton.

Have you seen signs like this as you’ve driven around the backroads or interstates and wondered why a farmer would post a sign like this on his cotton, corn or soybean farm? I probably did at one time, but I’ve been in agriculture so long, that I just think of it as standard operating procedure. I’ve thought about answering this question for a while, but keep getting sidetracked. The question seemed to have been answered in what people thought was a logical way, but in fact it was a misunderstanding. The question came back up recently as I read this story about some new farm signs.

I never would have thought about any of this if the people at Illinois Farm Families hadn’t done some research about why so many people think that America’s farms are by and large, corporate farms. That’s a big misperception when in reality, 94 percent of Illinois farms are family farms. One of the major reasons they thought the farms they saw were corporate-owned? They saw signs with some logos on them along the edges of various farms.

While I can see how people may make that connection, it’s a little like saying Ralph Lauren owns my butt cause I wear Ralph Lauren Chaps jeans. And since clothes seems to be an analogy we all can relate to, I’ll keep it going through the post. Besides, I have already picked a cotton based product and you all know I love cotton!

So why don’t we look at the things that I can tell you about signs, and I hope if I don’t answer your questions, you will ask them if you have any.

What do the signs mean?

There are a few kinds of signs actually.  I’ve seen signs for seed varieties and crop protection products. There are various farmer organizations that put up signs for members and I really enjoy the ones that Delta FARM put up as farmers do a voluntary environmental program (wish I could find one in my photo archive! Well, by golly Delta FARM sent me one after I posted!). But most I see fall into the category of sharing information about seed or crop protection products.

They usually show the brand or company (the photos above show an old school D&PL cotton sign and one for DEKALB corn). Keeping the blue jeans analogy, you can buy the RL Chaps jeans I like or Levis. Usually if they have big numbers on them, those numbers tell farmers what variety or hybrid is planted there. Its kind of like when you buy Levi’s jeans you can get 501 or 505 jeans. They are both made out of denim, but they fit different people differently and they may be styled differently, etc so Levi’s may be your thing or Chaps. Sometimes the signs also include other information — maybe they have a marketing tagline like “The Cotton Revolution” or they could have biotech traits on them. There is frequently a way for farmers to tell whether it’s a new or established product too.

Who puts the signs up?

Thank God I’ve never had to do this job! Putting up field signs is hard work and is usually done by the sales person, agronomist or a trainee. Usually they are put up after visiting with the farmer about how his crop is doing, whether he has some varieties that are really performing well, etc. whether it would be okay. The sales people usually bring everything they need so they can put them up — that sometimes means a post-hole digger, posts, signs with different numbers on them, etc. It’s a little different with clothing since the marketing designation is usually on them when they are bought, Levi’s and Chaps put the tags on the outside of the jeans, but you could cut them off or you could buy a “generic” pair of jeans without brand labeling.

Related articles

• Do farm signs mislead customers? What else are we missing? (agricultureproud.com)
• Crop Signs Don’t Mean Corporate Farming (ZweberFarms.com)
• Happy Plot Day! (kmrivard.com)
• Are dairy farms owned by companies or families? (DairyCarrie.com)

The post Why Would a Farmer Put a Sign on a Cotton, Corn or Soybean Field? appeared first on Hundred Percent Cotton.

It has been a little while since I’ve had a guest post in the series of people telling about how cotton is the fabric of their lives. This one has been in the works for a little while though and it is worth the wait. It’s from California elementary school teacher Sarah who blogs at  The House That Ag Built. She has both Twitter (@houseagbuilt) and Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/houseagbuilt) accounts as well. Thanks Sarah for sharing your story & the story of your students! 

Why I Love Cotton in the Classroom

Guest post by Sarah from The House That Ag Built for Janice the great J

As an elementary school teacher, I know the importance of teaching agriculture.  Society is so far removed from agriculture that many kids and adults alike think that food is made in the store and not grown in the field.  That is sad.  This past school year, I made the decision to step up my agriculture education a notch (or two) and boy am I happy with the results!  There are now 24 kids in my area that know more about agriculture than their parents and most adults in our area.

My first graders did a four-week agriculture unit and our focus was cotton.  We learned the structure of a cotton plant, what a cotton plant needs to grow, where cotton grows in the US, what we use cotton for, and we even got to see cotton that was straight from a farmer’s field!  Cotton is the perfect commodity to teach – even to such young learners!  Cotton is everywhere, it literally surrounds us in the form of clothing, we use it every day in the form of money, and it is found all around our homes in the form of towels, and sheets.

It is easy for kids to make a connection with something that is all around them, both at home and at school.  I LOVE cotton in the classroom! Having my students come up to me as proud as can be declaring that they are wearing cotton was so much fun!  It really brought agriculture to life for my kids.

I could go on and on about all my proud moments with cotton in my classroom, but I will let my students work show just how much they retained 7 months later.  I told them to write why cotton is important and here is what they did:

“I love cotton because I have my best coat and it is made out of cotton.  I almost wear it every day because it is my best shirt (coat) ever in my life and I have a lot of blankets at home and cotton is important too.”

“I like cotton because it makes pillows and I play pillow fight, and (cotton) gives me socks I love to wear.  And one more thing they (cotton) make me my favorite shoes.”  My 6-year-old student made the connection from cotton to pillows to having a pillow fight; cotton = fun!  They are so adorable!

“I love cotton because the cows eat cotton seeds and then they give milk and the milk goes to the dairy and the dairy makes ice cream!  I love cotton!  And I love cotton because my favorite shirt is made of cotton; my shirt is warm too.  I love cotton very very very much! Thank you!”  My favorite connection!  It is pretty cool that they can explain how cotton and ice cream relate!

“The important (thing about cotton) is that cotton gives us pillows and I love to sleep when I am so tired and cotton is so fuzzy and cotton makes money and I love to do a pillow fight and my blanket it is so fuzzy and it is blue and even plants of cotton. I love cotton.  Cotton is so important for us.  I love cotton so much if we didn’t have cotton we wouldn’t have clothes and pillow fights! I love cotton so so so much.” This writing is all over the place but when she was reading it to me after, she was so excited that she knew so much about cotton products!  She even remembered that money is made out of cotton.

A few of the picture my students drew on the back of their papers:

Cotton makes dollars (aka money).

Cotton makes sheets and clothes.

They even remembered how to draw a cotton plant and the boll.

As you can see cotton is lots of fun to teach in an elementary classroom.  My students and I love cotton in the classroom because it is easy to relate to and creates lasting agricultural literacy.

Thank you for having me Janice!

I love it! And think its awesome how much the kids remembered from one time of year to another! 

Related articles

• If it feels good, wear it!

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• Cotton 101: Saw My First Cotton Plants for the 2012 Season

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The post Cotton is the Fabric of the Classroom for @HouseAgBuilt appeared first on Hundred Percent Cotton.

I love finding new bloggers and really love it when one of them finds me and connects! That’s what happened a few weeks ago when an Arkansas woman subscribed to my blog. I looked at her blog and thought “Wow. She seems like so many people I know!” Since then comments and emails have gone back and forth and I’m lucky enough to have my new blogging friend Lacey join my “Cotton – Fabric of Our Lives” series with today’s post.

Lacey says she was “born and raised in eastern Arkansas, agriculture is all I know. In 2006, I married an aerial applicator and we now have two beautiful children. I have recently started a blog called The Ag Wife Diaries. In this blog, I express what it is like to be a pilot’s wife and also tell some of my thoughts on life. My purpose for my blog is to connect with other women.” You can also find her blog through the Facebook page for The Ag Wife Diaries.

Talking back and forth, Lacey pointed out that she and her husband are much more connected to rice than my favorite fiber. But when I explained that my series of guest posts ranges dramatically in knowledge of cotton from shoppers to cotton farmers, she said she had a real passion for cotton and started writing….

The post The Small Joys of Cotton appeared first on Hundred Percent Cotton.

One of the things I really got used to the last several years is seeing cotton seed and plants throughout the season. Its amazing how much I miss it when I live somewhere else. I’ve lived other places before and was able to keep up on the crop and with social media, I have lots of people willing to help me stay up-to-date on the crop in various areas, but its not the same. So when I was back in Memphis recently, I decided to take the backroads for a while rather than popping on the Interstate and making a bee-line out of town. I didn’t see many cotton fields on this trip, but once I was able to row a field (that means see rows of plants from the highway), I turned in and decided to take some photos and soak up a little of my favorite fiber!

Related articles

• Planting Considerations
• Thinking through Selecting Cotton Varieties
• Planting Cotton in California
• What does a cotton plant look like?
• more related posts on the Cotton 101 page

The post Cotton 101: Saw My First Cotton Plants for the Season appeared first on Hundred Percent Cotton.