I have to say, it has been too long since I stepped into a cotton field, so when people send me photos online reminding me where we are in the cotton season, I get pretty excited. Seemed like a good time to do a quick status check on the crop since a couple of people have sent me photos from the field!

Last week, my friend Rebecca Subbiah of Chow and Chatter tweeted:

@TruffleMedia @JPlovesCOTTON guess the blossom pic.twitter.com/Aswt9IZx0i

— RebeccaSubbiah RDN ? (@chowandchatter) September 15, 2014

Of course I immediately knew that was a cotton plant but I didn’t reply quickly. When John said it was definitely not a pumpkin, Rebecca tweeted another clue and a smile. And I have to say it made it an easy guess for everyone.

With the second photo I had to ask Rebecca whether the fiber and the blooms were on the same plant. See a lot of time in the fall, plants will have bolls opening on the bottom of the plant. Those are the first bolls to form and they are near the ground so they tend to get all the nutrients and water they need first to fill out. The plant keeps putting on blooms since cotton is a perennial plant.

Though the blooms are pretty — and the one at top event shows it has self-pollinated and is turning pink! — these are pretty much wasted energy for the plant right now. Farmers will go into their fields in the fall (some have already started picking in some places} and will determine when they should start harvesting knowing days are getting shorter and it is less and less likely that flowers will have time to become bolls.

What’s funny is just the day before, a friend who is a cotton ginner tweeted me a photo saying they were finally up and running. Harvest in South Georgia was getting far enough along that the gin was beginning to separate seed from lint.

If you’d like to know how the cotton crop is doing in a certain state, the USDA-NASS publishes the crop progress report each Monday.  There are statistics for the percentage of cotton has bolls opening (those numbers are strong this week), cotton harvested (it is really early on this one) and the overall condition of the crop.

I need to find time to catch some cotton in the field…. I am long overdue! In the meantime, if you are seeing some cotton, feel free to share the love! I welcome cotton sightings!

Related articles

• C is for Cotton – an A to Z Series about Agriculture
• Cotton Plant 101: What do a cotton plant, blooms & bolls look like? VIDEO
• First Visit to a North Carolina Cotton Farm

The post What You Should Know About Cotton in September appeared first on Hundred Percent Cotton.

On of the things that farmers have to worry about is whether or not their crops are going to fully mature. And while I think more than a few people can be watched closely for the same reason, with crops, it is a bit different. In order to harvest a crop, farmers want to be able to take action at peak maturity. If they harvest too early, they will miss harvesting some and if farmers wait too late, they risk reductions in quality and potentially yield. And while each crop differs in how you determine maturity and estimate harvest dates, cotton shows you a few ways to

So how do they do it?

These photos from cotton farmers Kelly & John Whatley in South Texas will show at least part of it. Take a look at Kelly’s Instagram account and you’ll see more recent photos — they are harvesting some fields now!

Well first, farmers pay close attention to the plants. They know what plants look like when they have a lot of growing left to do by looking at how close to the top the white flowers are. As the flowers turn to bolls, there are other things to look for with cotton fields.

With a good load of hard bolls, the changes in coloring on the plant is a sign that the plants are beginning to dry down.

Farmers will pull hard bolls and cut them open to get a good feel for how close the plant is getting to maturity.

When a farmer looks at the cut open boll, there are a few things they are looking for…. one is how wet the lint inside the boll is but it is also important to look at the seed that is developing inside the boll. In fact, the seed is the most important factor in determining maturity!  Without the seed maturing to for the embryo to firm up (otherwise it is a bit like jelly) and developing a good seed coat, you don’t want to harvest. Harvesting an immature crop reduces the quality of the product and makes it harder to use the fiber for clothes, etc.

Of course, once bolls begin popping open, there is no question! That cotton is ready to be harvested but farmers in the US will wait for most of the plant to be ready to harvest so cotton pickers can roll. In countries where people pick the crop, they sometimes pick as bolls open going through the field a few times. 

Related articles

• Farmers are Planning For Cotton Harvest as They Plant Cotton
• Cotton 101 Video: Field Nearing Harvest & Importance of Defoliation
• Cotton Plant 101: What do a cotton plant, blooms & bolls look like? VIDEO
• Cotton 101 Video: Impacts of Rain on Cotton During #Harvest12

The post What a Total a Lack of Maturity! … In Cotton Fields appeared first on Hundred Percent Cotton.

This morning when I did my first check of my social media streams, I came across a post from the fine folks at Cotton Incorporated who celebrate “the touch, the feel of cotton, the fabric of our lives.” The article begs the question “The Cotton Controversy: Does Green Have To Be At Odds With Our Whites?”

The author of the piece — Alden Wicker — and I differ significantly in our background knowledge and experiences with cotton, but we both appreciate dialog with people on other parts of the spectrum and realize that is an important part of learning. Her introduction to the article shows she listens to very different descriptions of cotton than you normally see here on my blog but I think it’s important that I acknowledge this sort of information is out there.

You wouldn’t think a nice, bland textile like cotton would be so controversial. But “The Fabric of Our Lives” has become a flashpoint in the battle for more sustainable and ethical clothing. Advocates of eco-friendly fashion accuse the cotton industry of heavy pesticide and herbicide use, dangerous working conditions, and even putting the consumer’s health at risk when we wear its products.

Given how passionate I am about the aforementioned issues, I jumped at the chance to debate a real, live cotton scientist. As a 12-year employee of Cotton Inc., Dr. Ed Barnes’ loyalties definitely lie with conventional cotton. But, I hoped he, being a scientist, would treat me to some real talk.

via Conventional Cotton Facts And Numbers- Is It Safe?.

It is clear that Alden listened and did some checking back on things too. One of the first questions she asked that Ed Barnes of Cotton Incorporated answered challenged what she knew & she checked his facts.

Alden Wicker: Thank you for speaking with me. As you know, the impetus for this interview was Amber Valletta’s April story for Refinery29. The first thing said was that conventionally grown cotton is one of the most heavily sprayed plants in farming.

Ed Barnes: That is definitely not the case. Critics like to say that cotton uses 25% of the world’s pesticides. It’s one of the urban legends that floats out there on the Internet. Global data is hard to get, but we use data from Cropnosis that tracks sales of pesticides around the world. It’s not the perfect data source, since it’s based on dollar values, but we know that cotton uses about 6% of pesticides used. This was surprising to me, but there’s a lot more pesticide use in fruits and vegetables.

Editor’s note: However, also according to Cropnosis, a private company in the U.K., cotton’s share by value of global pesticide consumption declined from 11% in 1988 to 6.8% (worth $3 billion) in 2008. Similarly, the share of insecticide use declined from 19% in 2000 to 15.7% in 2008.

The facts show what I have seen throughout my career — cotton farmers –like my friend Kenneth Hood in the photo — are always improving, doing better for their farms, the environment, their communities and their families. And while I know a lot of people say there is no perfect industry, I would suggest that continual improvement is perfection!

I can’t highlight all the interesting pieces in the article, cause to me all three pages were interesting and that would be theft if I ran more than a couple of excerpts but I encourage you to read Conventional Cotton Facts And Numbers- Is It Safe?.

Beyond the facts, there is a passion that, at the very least, matches Wicker’s, it even leads people like me to tweet about my love of cotton and to create series of posts about the natural fiber here… we also passionately seek improvements!

Related articles

• What’s with that Hayden Panettiere cotton commercial?
• C is for Cotton – an A to Z Series about Agriculture
• First Visit to a North Carolina Cotton Farm
• G is for GMOs – What are GMOs & Why Do Farmers Plant GMO Crops?

The post Taking Time to Check on Cotton Sustainability Facts appeared first on Hundred Percent Cotton.

I have had a guest series of posts related to cotton getting a bit dusty. I needed to dust it off and get back into getting people to tell their stories of how cotton is the fabric of their lives here on my blog. I have been one of many  talking about FFA on social media this week (afterall it is FFA week or #FFAweek as a hashtag on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram and Facebook).

One of my tweeps — Jordan Simonson @Advocate4Ag who’s blog is self-titled — said those blue & gold FFA jackets held a lot of stories. So I said write one for me! Afterall, the famed blue corduroy is cotton! And every FFA member or alumni I have ever met has an incredible attachment to the jacket. Like so many other stories though, it is the personal connections to that cotton jacket and all the great experiences that came with it that moved Jordan to take me up on the offer.

A lot of people have only heard about FFA, and may not really know much about it. I was one of them til I had the chance to get to know FFA members and participate in some of their programs including the Washington Leadership program Jordan mentions. Anyway, I hope you enjoy hearing his story!

What You Thought You Knew About FFA

The National FFA Organization, an organization synonymous with agriculture for many, but so much more for those that live/lived it. As an agvocate, I owe a part of who I am to FFA. It began my love for communications and helped shape my leadership skills so I was prepared for college. While there are thousands of people that have been a member of the FFA, there are still many who have not been a member. Below are the top 5 misconceptions about FFA that people who didn’t live it could make.

1. FFA is for farmers

I  have heard this several times in my small lifetime, “Oh, you were a member of the Future Farmers of America?” as they sit there and ask a question in their minds, “but you’re not a farmer?”

FFA has a very wide range of interests for students ranging from landscaping to forestry. It is no longer just about farming (even though we still love our farmers).

A group of my FFA friends went to the Washington Leadership Conference. Here we are siting in front of Wisconsin at the World War 2 memorial. By the way, those blue jackets are made out of cotton.

2. FFA is just a social club

While I spent a lot of time learning about agriculture during my time in FFA, I also learned about how to become a leader and professional. FFA leads many activities that help encourage leadership including Supervised Agricultural Experiences (SAE’s) where students can actually start their own business or work alongside a business owner. I owe my professionalism and can-do attitude to FFA.

 3. FFA doesn’t care about the entire community, just the agricultural community

While FFA understands that the agricultural community is important, it also understands that the community needs to serve the world to help make a difference. I remember my time at the Washington Leadership Conference where they taught us about being leaders through service. We actually went out and picked kale fields for the less fortunate so they could eat that night.

My Collegiate FFA group in a food stand on our campus at UW-Madison. There were a lot of brats made that day.

4. FFA isn’t fun

You would be dead wrong here. FFA knows how to have fun, whether it is having a tubing party, or a Halloween dance, FFA knows how to have fun. Not to mention all of the contests are not only hard work, but it is really fun when you come away with the victory.

5. I could have never been / could never be a part of FFA

This is the biggest misconception about FFA. FFA is for everyone, not just high schoolers focused on entering into an agricultural field. FFA is giving the world the next generation that will solve world hunger, will help treat diseases, will help turn our hurting economy around. I may sound really confident about the future FFA will help build, but I see it every day at my job and where my fellow FFA members have taken their lives. By the way, you can become a member of FFA at any age, not just a high schooler.

FFA is a chance for students to become a part of the future, are you ready to jump in?

Posts by friends:

• RuralRoute 2 — The FFA Creed
• Rural Route 2 — What’s in a jacket?
• The Ranch Wife Chronicles — Ignite the Future of Agriculture. 
• The Pinke Post — Why is FFA Relevant For Our Future?
• Monsanto Blog Inventing a Solution to the Kudzu Problem, is it Child’s Play? 
• Living on the Edge — A Life in the Blue Jacket

Related articles

• Students use National FFA Week to share value of agricultural education, history of FFA
• Expanding Opportunity with Help from the FFA
• Thankful for the Potential Our Youth Offer!
• FFA Students Looking Forward to Learning Leadership Skills, Meeting New People
• Have you heard it’s National FFA Week?

The post Love Those Cotton Blue & Gold FFA Jackets! A Guest Post from An Advocate for Ag appeared first on Hundred Percent Cotton.

This is another one of the “no brainer” posts for my 30 days of thanks series. I am sure some of you were beginning to wonder whether I was going to wait and make this my grand crescendo at the end or something, but I have to admit, that I’m not really that organized! LOL!

Why am I thankful for cotton?

As I type this up, I am sitting in my home, finally just relaxing. It has been a crazy busy couple of weeks and it feels a bit like my sofa is a long lost friend! When I got home, I needed to start some laundry, etc. I changed into some comfy flannel pajamas and dang if the sense of the relaxation didn’t IMMEDIATELY set in! I mean putting on a pair of pjs totally changed my mindset. That’s the touch the feel of cotton and happiness!

Who do I have to thank for cotton?

There is a long list of people who are involved in getting these pjs to someone like me! We frequently forget to think about the origins of things around us… I mean you can’t possibly think through all of this stuff all the time! But for me, I tend to be a bit more aware of the cotton chain than some because I have friends that are links along the way! You can always see my Cotton 101 page and cotton posts if you want to learn more.

I have worked in the cotton seed business since the mid 90s. That puts me in a place where I get to see the very beginning of it all! I know cotton breeders who are out there working to make better seed for cotton farmers. That seed is what farmers plant to produce lots of cotton bolls. Those bolls get harvested and then taken to the cotton gin where ginners separate the seed from the lint. The bales of cotton we all have heard so much about, then go to a warehouse (warehousemen) where they are stored til a marketing cooperative or merchant sells them to textile manufacturers! And eventually they show up in stores with familiar labels or price tags.

How much did cotton farmers grow this year?

I took a little time to get some numbers together…. First, I looked at the August 2013 Crop Production Report, you see that the 2013 crop was forecast to hit 12.9 million bales (480 pound bales). That means we are down from last year quite a bit — 26 percent in fact! A really major factor in this was planted area. See, in 2012, there were more than 12.3 million acres of cotton planted and this year there were only 10.3 million acres planted to cotton but it is also important to note that there is also expected to be a drop in pounds harvested per are too. In fact, it is a statistically significant drop of 91 pounds per acre.

When you look at them, this will be the smallest cotton crop U.S. farmers have harvested in the last 5 years!

Where Heroes Are Made

The team at Deltapine (where I spent more than a decade) is celebrating cotton farmers too! They did this really great song with a group of Nashville musicians who wrote a song called “Where Heroes are Made.” The music video is available now and it features a cotton farmer I know from Georgia — Chuck Coley! Here the story of how Chuck’s family farm has transitioned over the generations as he and his son talk about the family’s history in one of the behind the scenes videos. And yes, I love that the song was written by a Memphis guy!

Related articles

• Our Cotton Plant
• First Freeze Threatens Cotton Crop
• GA Cotton Harvest Off to Late Start

The post Thankful for Cotton & The Folks Who Plant it & Get it to Me! appeared first on Hundred Percent Cotton.

This weekend, I drove to Memphis to visit family and eat awesome barbecue. And on both my drive down and drive back home to St. Louis, I got distracted by the cotton fields along the highway…. and yes, I had to stop! I mean really. Stopping in random cotton fields to see what’s happening that I may be able to share with others…. it’s a #cottongeek’s dream. and I even shot some video which is perfect since YouTube is hosting geek week! And it’s great to have a new post in my cotton 101 series!

So, in this video, I show you how cotton breeders make the cross-pollination that ultimately lead to new cotton varieties. Now let me put a disclaimer here… this is just a glimpse at some of the tactics. The real know-how is deciding what parents to use, what traits to screen for, how to test to determine the varieties viability, etc… but this is something that helps you understand how cotton flowers work.

This is what we call a candlestick on a cotton plant. The bud that will produce a beautiful white bloom the following day.

If someone like me doesn’t mess with the bud, the next day it will open up and be a beautiful cream color. The flower has both male and female parts so it can pollinate itself. On this flower, you can see it actually has begun to get a little pink. That means it has been pollinated!

By the next day, the cotton bloom will turn a beautifully rich pink!

BUT cotton breeders find candlesticks the morning before they open and emasculate them. That means they pull off all the male parts — lots of little pollen sacks that will burst open in the afternoon (you can see some on my fingernails LOL). By pulling those off, they leave the female parts which will be ready to be pollinated in the afternoon. That’s when they come back with an open bloom from the other parent plant and put the pollen on!

Hope you liked the video & photos! What do you think about cotton blooms? I think they are gorgeous! They do make me happy!

The post Cotton 101 Video: How to Cross Pollinate Two Cotton Plants appeared first on Hundred Percent Cotton.

After writing more than 100 blog posts on cotton, it can be fun to watch posts keep showing up in my stats. There are a few posts that seem to show up frequently. They are posts that help explain things people may be interested in or that people find here or there and want to share with others. Since I moved the blog from my previous webhost (note to all – I suggest you steer clear of inmotion hosting), I think its’ really interesting to see which posts are getting the most traffic! Here are my Top 10 posts about my favorite fiber — cotton! 

Cotton 101: What does a cotton plant or field look like?

I love that my top viewed cotton post was something I put together as a response to a friend’s tweet two years ago! The friend was asking whether it was possible he was seeing cotton in the field when he was far from his Midwestern home. It was! I wrote a post including photos from planting, early season, mid-season, fruiting, harvest time and post harvest. With each photo I talk through some of the key things happening on cotton farms.

Top 10 Cotton States in Area, Production, Yield & Value

This is a newer post — written in August 2012 — and contains some key numbers about cotton by states. The data included in this post include:

• Top 10 Cotton States in Acreage / Area to Harvest in 2012
• Top 10 Cotton States in Production / Total Number of Bales in 2012
• Top 10 Cotton States Per Acre Production / Yield in Pounds Per Acre in 2012
• Value of Cotton by State

Since those are 2012 numbers, I am thinking I will do similar posts on an annual basis. I did a look forward to 2013 cotton acres a bit ago that seems to be really popular.

Cotton 101: How a Cotton Gin Works

We all learned about cotton gins and Eli Whitney in elementary school but somewhere along the way, a bunch of us have forgotten what a cotton gin is for since then. The gin is where cotton farmers take their crop to have the cotton lint separated from the seed so it can go to textile mills and become clothes, towels, etc.

What’s the Fabric of our Lives About? Why Advertise Cotton?

I love when I am watching TV and I hear someone singing “the touch the feel of cotton, the fabric of our lives.” In fact I love it so much, that it is sometimes my ringtone! But what leads Hayden Pannettiere or Zoe Deschanel to sing about cotton and who pays them to do it? Seems that’s something other people have wondered before and they search Google to find out. Some of them find my blog in the process.

Why Would a Farmer Put a Sign on a Cotton, Corn or Soybean Field?

When you drive down the backroads of America, or even the interstate in rural areas, people sometimes see a sign on the edge of a farm field. Some fo us aren’t sure what those are for and some make assumptions about what they mean. But farmers do that as a sign for each other, this post helps explain all of that.

Cotton 101: Can you eat cotton or cottonseed?

People will joke about being so hungry they could eat something as unappetizing as cardboard, but could you ever eat cottonseed if you were really hungry? Its a yes and no answer that you may want to know more about before biting in.

Understanding the Boll Weevil’s Impact Looking Forward

The mean ol’ boll weevil is probably the one cotton bug that more people have heard of than any but for those of us in the US, we should know it’s not even native to the US! It came here years ago and American farmers want it to go home to Central America. Here’s what’s on the minds of those farmers as they look to the future.

Cotton 101: What’s Cottonseed Used for?

Products made with cotton fiber / lint is really well understood. Most of us have cotton sheets & towels, jeans & t-shirts, etc. But what happens to cottonseed when it leaves the cotton gin? Well there are several things.  

Cotton 101: Facts about Cotton — The Crop & Products

This is a post that provides some of the trivia — bits and pieces of things that I think are interesting about cotton. Yeah, I am a total cotton geek!

A Million Bales of Cotton Impact From One Small Town

When a cotton gin in Arkansas hit the milestone of ginning one million bales of cotton, it got me thinking about the contributions of this small town that most Americans had never heard of. How much cotton is one million bales and how many pieces of clothing would that make for folks in a big city?

What am I missing?

Looking at all of that,

The post Top 10 Blog Posts About Cotton in 2013 appeared first on Hundred Percent Cotton.

Related articles

• How does our farm decide what to plant?
• S is for Seed – It All Starts with a Seed
• What is No-Till?
• Weeds are a Challenge for Farms of All Types

The post Farmers are Planning For Cotton Harvest as They Plant Cotton appeared first on Hundred Percent Cotton.

If you are a fan of Hayden Panettiere, you know the actress has made a name for herself by playing the tomboy daughter of a football coach, a high school cheerleader and hero who can produce fire and a rising star in Nashville who has more than a few personal problems. Well, she is drawing attention to my favorite fiber now as a new spokesperson for Cotton Incorporated.

Have you seen that Hayden Panetierre cotton commercial? The new commercials featuring Panettiere singing her own unique version of the memorable “The Fabric of Our Lives” theme song started airing in April. And if you haven’t seen it, you really should check it out. And to make it really easy for you, I’m embedding the video here!

How is cotton featured in Hayden Paniettiere’s closet?

One of the cool pieces of the advertisements over the past five years has been seeing the different styles the various spokespeople have had. Hayden Paniettiere doesn’t disappoint as you saw in the commercial! She has a wide range of cotton clothing — from clothes that are campfire perfect, to trendy pieces for a night out on the town to something more formal. I mean check out a few of the outfits in these photos.

And a really cool feature on The Fabric of Our Lives site is the ability to check out the pieces in Hayden Panettiere’s closet. You can click on a piece and see where the outfit is from and it even takes you to another video of Paniettiere talking about the piece, how she pairs it with other things in her closet, etc. There’s also a Q&A with her generally talking about clothes, fashion and of course cotton:

How do you feel about cotton as a fabric?

What could be better than cotton? It’s my go-to. I can dress it up and wear it as a form-fitting dress, or dress it down as a soft and comfy tee. I know I’ll be fashionable and comfy either way. When I can look good AND feel good, I’m happy.

via Cotton: The Fabric of Our Lives: Hayden’s Profile.

Why advertise cotton?

I’ve previously written a post on the reasons for the ad campaign on cotton. The ad campaigns for cotton are funded through a commodity program that seeks to increase the marketability of my favorite fiber. And Cotton Inc. comes up with the awesome creative. The ads are funded by cotton farmers and the people who import cotton. The ads are designed to increase awareness in cotton and cotton farmers have an interest in keeping cotton top of mind, especially since the makers of all the synthetic fibers like polyester have big ad budgets, advertising is part of it.

But there are other things to funded through the monies farmers pay into Cotton Inc — research and development of textile processes, cotton production practices, etc which help keep cotton competitive with synthetic fibers in other areas or even help discover new uses.

More Information on Cotton

I love putting information about cotton together for the blog so let me start this section with the various resources here on the blog.

• The cotton category of posts includes pieces of all sorts — news, information, photos, etc. If its about cotton and on this blog, it should have been thrown in this category. Any time you are on the blog and interested in finding this set of posts you can just go all the way to the top of the screen and select cotton and you’ll get that done too. 
• There are also some groupings of posts within that category that help you find something more specifically. 
  • My series of Cotton 101 posts has about 20 posts in it a few of which are highlighted on this Cotton 101 page. Cotton 101 posts are the ones that talk through some of the basics of cotton. I’d love to know what I’m missing! 
  • To better understand about how others think & feel about cotton, I have a series of cotton guest posts. If you’d like to join the series, please read

    What is it that you love about cotton? Please join a series of cottony goodness!

To find our more about Cotton Inc. and the kind of things they put out about cotton clothes and textiles, you can check out:

• Websites for Cotton Inc include the fashion-oriented thefabricofourlives.com,
• There is a Facebook cotton page  (who doesn’t “like” cotton?)
• Fashionable tweets go out from @CottonFashion.
• And great videos are on the CottonFabricofOurLives YouTube Channel.

The post What’s with that Hayden Panettiere cotton commercial? 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.