This spring has been a bit nuts. Not only have we had weird cold snaps and some pretty significant storms, but I have been traveling a lot and all of those things come together to delay my seeing those precious cotton plants getting their start this spring. But today, as I drove back to St. Louis from Memphis, I got giddy about the time I reached Clarkedale, Arkansas as I could clearly see cotton had emerged!

I did what anyone this passionate about cotton would do…. I pulled over at the next exit and grabbed my camera! I had to capture these little cotton plants who have been putting up with pretty damp, cold weather the last week — which means the plants are a bit challenged for their growth. (Yes, I know, I am SO LIKE COTTON in that I prefer warm weather and look at cold weather as something I have to survive! ).

Cotton in Arkansas

Here are some of the first pictures I snapped. You can see the soils in Clarkedale are pretty damp. The soil was pretty light but there was definitely some clay content there and those plants are pretty happy that the temps this week will be in the 80s. (I am too!)

Cotton farmers in Arkansas are like a lot farmers this year, trying hard to catch up on planting! I saw some running pretty hard two weeks ago when I drove through the area. They were burning the midnight oil planting. They have finally gotten ahead of average.

Missouri Bootheel Cotton

You’d think that would be enough but it wasn’t… further up the road I decided to hop off the highway near Steele, Missouri. The Bootheel has a great history in cotton and some really good loamy soils that were lighter than the field I stopped in earlier. You can see the field has been draining too. For the past week or so, Missouri cotton farmers have been busy too! They have gotten back up to their average too!

2014 Cotton Planting Progress in the US

Since I was posting about the fact cotton is beginning to pop through the soil surface in some parts of the Mid-South, I thought I’d include the latest USDA planting progress figures. They came out today so they are definitely timely and you can see that in the past week, cotton planters have been running full blast is quite a few states!

 Wanna Know More?

If you are checking this out and thinking you’d like to know more about my favorite fiber, check out the series of Cotton 101 posts and these other posts that are popular. And ask any questions you have and I’ll find answers if I’m not familiar with the topic!

• Cotton Plant 101: What do a cotton plant, blooms & bolls look like? VIDEO
• Farmers are Planning For Cotton Harvest as They Plant Cotton
• C is for Cotton – an A to Z Series about Agriculture
• Top 10 Cotton States in Area, Production, Yield & Value
• Cotton 101: Facts about Cotton – The Crop & Products

The post Young Cotton Plants & 2014 Cotton Planting Progress to Date appeared first on Hundred Percent Cotton.

Recently I was astounded by the amount of agnerdness that took over my Twitter & Goggle Plus streams as friends with the Auburn University Extension Service started sharing photos of a cotton agronomist using Google Glass to scout a cotton crop. Yes, it was Google Glass on the farm! 

Here’s one of the photos that John Fulton (Google+ and @fultop) shared of agronomist Greg Pate. 

And Jim Langcuster (Google+ and @extensionguy) also snapped photos…. I especially like this one of Greg looking at the various fruiting positions on a cotton plant! I wonder if he could use those to record a series of photos and videos like the one on my what does a cotton plant look like post?

Jim wrote a great article on the Google Glass cotton farm demo saying “farmers place a high premium on mobility — namely, the ability to communicate and to upload and download digital information on their mobile devices while their hands are free to conduct all manner of essential business on the farm, whether it’s crop scouting, repairing an irrigation system or calibrating a sprayer.”

The post Google Glass On The Farm? Extreme AgNerds Scout Cotton appeared first on Hundred Percent Cotton.

I’m overdue to write up something explaining what’s going on in the world of US 2013 cotton acres. Of course, it has been the topic of discussion for a lot of cotton meetings this winter and the spring planting season was bumpy with weather. I figured now is as good a time as any to talk about what’s going on.

Winter Cotton Planting Projections for 2013

The winter meetings showed a range of projected acres from the USDA’s  projected 2013 U.S. cotton planted acreage of 10.0 million acres (down almost one-fifth from 2012). They said it was “due mainly to lower cotton prices and relative net returns that favor shifts to alternative crops.” The National Cotton Council’s (NCC’s) planting survey (taken in December-January) provided a lower number forecasting 9.0 million acres before prices rose a bit. The survey pointed to a movement from cotton to corn and soybeans in the Delta and the Southeast and wheat, corn and sorghum as the main replacement of cotton in the Southwest, and wheat and specialty crops taking acres from my favorite fiber in the West.

Spring Cotton Planting Results 2013

The USDA NASS issued it’s 2013 acreage report on July 28. And thankfully the USDA was closer and cotton acres didn’t drop as much as farmers had thought they may as the total came in at 10.251 million acres. That’s probably due in part to the fact that cotton prices rose a bit and spring weather in some areas made it hard to get earlier crops in the ground but it still represents a big drop from 2012.

The chart below shows which states had the largest drops.

* all numbers in thousands

I had to add the change column to see where the drops were. Then I realized I wanted to know on a percentage basis where the changes were most significant. Surprisingly, Florida and Georgia were the only cotton-producing states that had increases in planted areas with 16 percent and 1 percent increases respectively. The states with the largest percentage drops were Oklahoma (down 51%), Kansas (down 46%), Arkansas  (down 46%), Louisiana (down 43%) and both Mississippi and Tennessee cutting their acreage by a third (33% and 32% respectively). Now the watch is on to see how these acres do through the summer. Hail storms sometimes make farmers abandon acres as can drought.

Here’s hoping to a successful year for the country’s cotton farmers! I’m hoping to continue to lose weight so I will be in the market for some more jeans!

Related articles

• USDA revises 2013 cotton acreage estimate
• Cotton growers persist amid drought, storms
• USDA Acreage Report
• Farmers are Planning For Cotton Harvest as They Plant Cotton

The post 2013 Cotton Acres Early Projections & Planting Estimates appeared first on Hundred Percent Cotton.

Last year, was a first for me. It was the first time in decades that I hadn’t kicked off the new year of winter meetings with the Beltwide Cotton Conferences (aptly names as folks come from all over the Cotton Belt for this). The Beltwide I wrote a short post about it as it happened. And while I have to admit, I had a great distraction since I was in Hawaii for a short vacation before the Farm Bureau’s annual meeting set my winter into work gear.  I have to tell you, it was strange. Surreal even.

I have never been able to match the sense of community at Beltwide. The meeting draws in people from all seven segments of the cotton business — farmers, ginners, warehousemen, cottonseed handlers, merchants, cooperatives and merchandisers. That means everyone from the farm to the finished product comes! There are meetings for all segments in the same place.

That may sound like a huge number of people, but think about it with the numbers I’ll give you.

• Although there are about 2 million farms in the US, only 18,600 cotton farms.
• There are approximately 1,300 cotton gins.
• The cottonseed segment is people who crush cottonseed into oil or work with hulls, etc and it’s tight.
• and on and on.

In addition to all of those segments, you get all the researchers who are investigating new stuff and folks like me who work for companies involved in the cotton industry. Out of that small group a couple thousand of them will come to San Antonio. We are closer than the alumni of major universities — there are fewer people and we get together in person annually.

We’ll attend meetings that help us understand what we can learn from the problems we had this year and we will find out more about the new thing on the horizon. We will celebrate farmers who have had great accomplishments and some of us will think about friends who won’t be there. And we will eat great TexMex while talking to dear friends who we don’t get to see nearly enough. My friend Elton Robinson explains it all in his post encouraging others to “squeeze it for all its worth.”

And if all of that wasn’t enough to get me to pack my suitcase early, I get to present to a group during a workshop. It will be my first time to present at the Beltwide. Quite frankly, I’m psyched. So psyched in fact I’ve already polled folks about cotton and social media here on the blog! Here’s the way I explained it on the blog at work:

I get to leave my mark on the last of the Beltwide Production Conferences during a Tuesday afternoon workshop. I will be alongside two other social media users for “You Are Now the Media: Social Networking in Agriculture” Tuesday morning from 10:30 to noon. My presentation will focus on the use of smartphones in the quest to provide information in videos and photos.

Speaking at Beltwide makes this a first for me but one in which I expect to see familiar faces giving me that friendly smile like Mr. Ray & Ms Dorothy did decades ago. I have joked that my being allowed to present at a conference of PhDs and researchers indicates the end of the world as we know it. But in reality, this year marks the last Production Conference for the cotton industry. The other technical conferences will continue and I expect more people will be encouraged to use social media to both communicate their experiences and to learn from others. And if that’s the case, maybe my being on the agenda makes perfect sense.
via A Beltwide Cotton Conference First After Decades of Attending | Beyond the Rows

I would love to see some familiar faces there Tuesday! You coming?

Related articles

• Poll on Cotton & Social Media (I need your help please!)
• 2013 Farm Press High Cotton winners announced
• The 12 Days of Cotton – My Christmas Homage to My Favorite Natural Fiber

The post Beltwide Cotton Conferences — If you love cotton, you really need to be there! appeared first on Hundred Percent Cotton.

Hey there friends! I think for some people, I may be one of the few connections you have to cotton farming. I’d love your help as I work on a presentation about social media for the cotton industry’s major meeting — the Beltwide Cotton Conference. As I’ve been working on my presentation, I kept thinking there are some questions that you could help me answer that may help me as I tell my social media story. And if it helps me encourage others to share their cotton story, all the better!

I’m trying to make this easy for you to help me, just a few questions with drop down answers and a text box where you can say anything else that you’d like to say anything about what you’ve learned, the sources you go to, etc.

One more thing…. I’d really appreciate your helping me get a few folks to fill this out if you have a few minutes to share it.

[contact-form][contact-field label=’Name’ type=’name’ required=’1’/][contact-field label=’Website’ type=’url’/][contact-field label=’Your connection to cotton’ type=’select’ required=’1′ options=’I wear it,I am in the cotton business,I%26#039;m not sure I have a connection’/][contact-field label=’Have you learned anything about cotton through social media?’ type=’select’ options=’Yes,No’/][contact-field label=’If you have learned about cotton through SM%26#x002c; have you ever shared that info with others’ type=’select’ options=’Yes,No’/][contact-field label=’Has social media had a lasting impact on your perception of cotton?’ type=’select’ options=’Yes (for the better),Maybe,No’/][contact-field label=’What else would you like to say about cotton %26amp; social media?’ type=’text’/][contact-field label=’Do you like seeing photos %26amp; videos online?’ type=’select’ options=’Yes,No,maybe’/][/contact-form]

The post Poll on Cotton & Social Media (I need your help please!) appeared first on Hundred Percent Cotton.

I love seeing a cotton field near harvest time and I’m afraid this may be the last set of photos I get to capture this year during picking time. Late in the afternoon and into the early evening there is a kind of light that grabs my attention and makes me hit the brakes no matter what I should be doing. I hope you enjoy the photos and that you get a moment’s wonder thinking this is where your favorite jeans, hoodie or concert shirt got it’s start.

I should have gotten photos taken when someone else was around or I should have put a tri-pod in the car because balance the camera on my car, on a jacket didn’t give me too many options for a self-portrait. And the wind was pretty strong and cool (especially without the jacket!). Add to that the drought kept this crop pretty short and well, I love cotton far more than I love the results of my self-portrait exercise. This one is ok even if I’m not smiling.

Related articles

• Cotton Plant 101: What do a cotton plant, blooms & bolls look like? VIDEO
• Cotton 101 Video: Impacts of Rain on Cotton During #Harvest12
• Area cotton farmers talk about this year’s crop

The post Cotton – Maybe My Last Photos of a Harvest Ready Field in 2012 (Day 6) appeared first on Hundred Percent Cotton.

My friend David Hayden asked me today whether I had a top 10 list of cotton states. He tweeted:

@JPlovesCOTTON do you have a blog post with the top ten #cotton producing states or know where I can find such a list?

— David Hayden (@Davidhayden7) August 26, 2012

I didn’t have a top 10 post and as I sat down to research and write it, I began pondering how in the world I could work that out. I am sure that this sounds like a super easy question to lots of people but I had several ways to think about a top 10 so rather than do one, I am going to do a few of them. You can see some of the options in the text of the latest USDA Crop Production Report’s national numbers for 2012 (for 2014 cotton production, please see this post):

All cotton production is forecast at 17.7 million 480-pound bales, up 13 percent from last year. Yield is expected to average 784 pounds per harvested acre, down 6 pounds from last year. Upland cotton production is forecast at 17.0 million 480-pound bales, up 15 percent from 2011. Pima cotton production, forecast at 663,000 bales, is down 22 percent from last year. Producers expect to harvest 10.8 million acres ofall cotton, up 14 percent from 2011. This harvested total includes 10.6 million acres of Upland cotton and 233,400 acres of Pima cotton.

Top 10 Cotton States in Acreage / Area to Harvest in 2012

This year, farmers in the US had some reductions in cotton acres as more farmers in the Cotton Belt looked to make money planting a corn crop. That seems to have worked well for quite a few of them too. There were more than 10.8 million acres planted to my favorite fiber though with almost half of those acres in Texas! Georgia was another big area for cotton planting and we will see whether or not Hurricane Isaac has any impact on the anticipated 1.2 million acres to be harvested there. (All numbers listed in thousands.) 

1. Texas                   5,215.5
2. Georgia               1,245
3. Arkansas             570
4. Mississippi          570
5. North Carolina   545
6. Alabama              387
7. Tennessee          375
8. California            363
9. Missouri              355
10. South Carolina   278

Top 10 Cotton States in Production / Total Number of Bales in 2012

With the incredible number of acres Texas has, it is probably no surprise that the Lone Star state takes the lead in the number of cotton bales produced! In fact, many of the top 10 states in terms of acreage do well in showing up production-wise. Note: cotton bales weigh an average of 480 pounds each and can make a lot of awesome textiles!

1. Texas                   6,725
2. Georgia               2,400
3. Arkansas             1,200
4. California            1,145
5. Mississippi          1,100
6. North Carolina   950
7. Missouri              675
8. Arizona                658
9. Tennessee          590
10. Alabama              580

Top 10 Cotton States Per Acre Production / Yield in Pounds Per Acre in 2012

You can see from this year’s numbers as well as the averages over time that areas of the Cotton Belt where weather was good for production really excelled compared to the traditional deep South areas where drought was a problem in 2012. Arizona and California tend to produce high pounds per acre whereas some of the other areas can tend to be a bit more variable.

The post Top 10 Cotton States in Area, Production, Yield & Value 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.

This weekend I drove down to Memphis and have to admit, I really enjoyed the fact I wasn’t on a tight deadline! I did well getting on the road early and made great time, well, that is until I reached the part of Missouri that is part of the Cotton Belt. Yes, I moved a lot slower once I got to the Missouri Bootheel!

I was able to resist the urge to check the cotton crop up close for a few exits, but by the time I reached Hayti, it was clear. I HAD TO STOP. Now I could attribute this need to stop to the fact I was sure that some of my blog peeps (ie you) would like to see what the cotton and corn crops look like in the south, but really, it is also because I just wanted to see some cotton myself!

I will let the video do most of the talking….

As you can see, the cotton crop is up and it is growing well. For growth stages of cotton before it starts putting on blooms, we usually talk about the number of true leaves or fruiting branches the plants have. I saw plants that ranged from 4-6 true leaves in this field, but others were 8-12 true leaves.

Although glyphosate-resistant pigweed used to be a massive problem in this area, farmers here have made great progress in controlling the weed through a program approach and that is reducing the seed bank. The fields I saw along the highways were much cleaner than a couple of years ago.

Corn is looking good too. I saw some great looking fields but it was clear that irrigation is making a big difference this year. It has been a really weird spring. It has been drier than normal but more importantly, it has been really hot too! The combination is taking its toll on farm fields across the US and the corner of this corn field shows it.

Cotton can weather the environmental conditions a little bit better but it still needs some moisture.

What questions do you have about these crops?

The post Cotton & Corn Crop Conditions this Week – Video 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.