Have you ever heard of the Cotton Belt? It’s one of those phrases you can catch in the news, a region mentioned that may make sense to some but not all.

The US Cotton Belt goes from coast-to-coast and includes a lot more states than you may realize. A lot of times people think of the deep south and don’t realize cotton farms extend further north and west. In fact, cotton is currently being grown in 17 states!

Each state in the region has conditions — weather, soils, etc — that make growing cotton possible. That means each state has areas with longer, warmer summers.

There are cotton gins in each of the states that help process the crop by separating the fiber from the cotton seed. Many of those gins are cooperatives that help move the crop to the warehouses and merchants for sale.

And it’s a major crop in 14 of those states, according to the National Cotton Council.

The post What is the Cotton Belt? appeared first on Hundred Percent Cotton.

Cotton pickers are some of the coolest machines out there. I mean, memes keep coming back that compare the lights and action of cotton harvest with a mainstage concert!

I love watching cotton getting picked! And getting a ride along is always a fun way to go…. sometimes farmers have even trusted me behind the wheel, but I’m really best suited for the buddy seat.

Basic Functions of Cotton Pickers

The basic premise of a cotton picker is to pull cotton off of plants leaving as much of the plant matter in the field as possible to reduce the possibility of contaminants making it to the gin or the textile mill. But the way they do it is an amazingly complex system of actions.

Here’s a drawing I made to show some of the primary elements of the machine.

Spindles Pull Cotton From the Plant

Cotton pickers have spindles that rotate on cylinders that rotate as well. The roughened metal of the spindle pulls the cotton from the plant. There are cotton pickers and then there are cotton strippers… they both harvest cotton, but cotton pickers are a bit different in that they can harvest cleaner fiber because of the spindles whereas strippers strip everything off the mainstem.

You can see in this photo how the spindles are lined up between the two gray guides.

Rows of spindles around the cylinder, keep lots of movement, trying to leave the branches of the plant and even the bracts in tact. The bracts are the parts of the plant that keep the fiber attached until picked.

Compacting Cotton for Transport to the Gin

There are a few ways this is done now:

• Cotton is still collected in trailers without compacting in some countries but this is rare in the U.S.
• Separate machinery from the picker that is used at the field’s edge. This was common in the recent past but has become much less common in the U.S. You can see this in an old post about how moduling comes after cotton harvest.
• On-board moduling / bales that happens as the cotton picker continues to pick more fiber. I shared a photo essay on the John Deere picker that creates modules in the field back in 2010.

And this tweet and the image in it…. that’s what got me to blog today! Love seeing a diagram of what happens in the basket with the on-board moduling system!

Funciona de uma colheitadeira de algodão pic.twitter.com/DwtJUwYIsn

— Agricultura (@agricultura4you) July 9, 2022

The post Cotton Pickers: How Do They Work appeared first on Hundred Percent Cotton.

I’ve been meaning to write something here for a while… I have missed my cotton time. I need to visit a cotton field or two. Maybe ten.

And as Facebook memories showed me how I spent a Friday night years ago on a drive for Memphis, I had to share as I think I am well overdue for stopping in random cotton fields as I travel too. Reminded I need to just get going again so here I post.

I have no idea whether the 2021 crop looks this good in Missouri and am realizing I need to spend some time figuring it out. This video was taken in 2017 and that was a really good year for a lot of U.S. cotton farmers although Hurricane Harvey took a bite of Texas. Somehow a lot of people got rains when they needed it and hot sunny days when they needed those. Having been at home a lot more than previous years, I need to catch up.

Sure, I know 2021 has presented challenges, but it is a bit harder to keep a handle on them when you aren’t in the middle of it on a regular basis. And this is the time of year, farmers are beginning to really see what may make it to harvest (if a hurricane, hail or some other storm doesn’t hit).

Have you had a chance to check out a cotton field recently? Have you ever seen one?

If you get this because you subscribe to my emails, don’t forget you can reply and tell me what’s happening in your part of the world too!

I’m ready to see a cotton plant loaded up with cotton bolls and blooming out the top! Bet I make it to a cotton field soon!

The post A Cotton Field in Late July, Taking a Look at Growth appeared first on Hundred Percent Cotton.

This is one of those weeks where it is easy for me to wish I was traveling even though I am so excited to have spent the weekend at home. The reason I kind of wish I was traveling? The National Cotton Council held it’s annual meeting this weekend and you know how much I love some of my cotton folks! But it is also a great time to catch up on what’s happening and what the expectations are for 2018. It is a topic that gets a lot of mindshare right now as farmers are buying seed and getting ready for planting across the belt.

One of my favorite parts of the annual meeting is the announcement of the planting intentions survey results. This year the survey found that U.S. cotton farmers intend to plant a bit more cotton — 13.1 million acres. Last year it was 12.6 million so the new figure means 3.7 percent more. I’d like to think that’s cause I bought a couple new pairs of jeans and some heavy cotton sweaters & sweatshirts this month!

Since several of you have routinely seemed interested in the facts and figures of cotton, I want to share some of the details from the report too. And since some of us aren’t numbers people, I’m making a video version of it for us! Visual learners like me can choose how this works right?

A few facts to give a shout out to from the NCC release:

• On average, each acre yields 842 pounds (less than two bales)
• Most regions of the Cotton Belt expect to increase acres, but the Mid-South is down 0.1 percent with a 5.5 percent reduction in Mississippi being the biggest drop in the region. Arizona has a sizeable drop as well leading the Far West to be down 6.8 percent.
• Farmers in the Southwest are really driving the increase. Kansas farmers intend to plant 55.3 percent more!  While Texas acres aren’t rising that much, the state will likely remain home to more than half of the U.S.’ planted area.

And in case you wonder how much cotton is planted in your part of the world, here’s the chart detail:

The post How many acres of cotton will U.S. farmers plant in 2018? appeared first on Hundred Percent Cotton.

When you look at cotton overall, the crop can be improved in a variety of ways. For some, adding irrigation to their crop production would be an improvement while others may find that being able to move from hand labor to mechanical labor is an improvement.

Another way to improve cotton production is to look for new cotton varieties — that would be the types of cotton seed people plant. Right now, if you look at the company I work for, Monsanto, which has a brand of cotton seed called Deltapine, we have plant breeders who focus on that type of improvement as do several other companies like Dow & Bayer. You also have public breeding programs within the university extension programs at places like Texas A&M and Louisiana State.

These plant breeders look at all the cotton varieties that are commercially sold around the US and those that grow natively around the world and think “what can we do to make a better cotton plant?” Then they work with all the varieties to help make pairings that may result in new combinations. Maybe the new combination they are looking for has better lint yield so the farmer harvests more cotton, maybe they want to make a current variety less susceptible to a disease that bugs bring into the field, or maybe they are looking to improve the quality of the cotton harvested so the fiber is longer and stronger which makes a better yarn.

All of these things are looked at scientifically, with detailed ratings systems that are used plant by plant. Any of those things would improve cotton varieties and be done through breeding & variety improvement.

Here is a video my office put together that explains some of the pepper variety development programs we have, the concept is the same for other crops, just different characteristics.

Thanks Larry

Writing about cotton genetics was a really good way for me to reflect on conversations I had with one of the cotton breeders I worked with at Deltapine what seems like forever ago. Larry Burdett had an incredible passion for the topic, he was an avid reader and loved the history of the crop, going so far as planting really old varieties of seed just to see it for himself — his nursery was the only place I’ve ever seen Sea Island cotton.

Sadly we are mourning his passing right now. But at least I feel I am smarter about cotton thanks to all my conversations in Arizona fields with him. This photo of him is from a morning in the field where he helped me understand his rating system for leaf smoothness / hairiness. You can see, he’s pulled a leaf off of the plant and is looking at the underside of the leaf. leaf hairs are interesting because they can present problems of contamination at times. How smooth or hairy a leaf is also has implications for how much some bugs will like the plant! Such seemingly little things make a big difference in cotton!

(Part of this answer was drafted in response to the question What is cotton variety improvement (in simpleton explanation)? being asked on Quora. Like everything on my blog, I wrote this out of personal interest, not any business reason for my employer.) 

The post Cotton 101: What is cotton variety improvement? appeared first on Hundred Percent Cotton.

This weekend, I accidentally called a friend who farms (ok, I butt dialed him) and he called me back.  We enjoyed the serendipity of it all and had a good visit.

As is always the case, weather was a major discussion point. Seems not only was Memphis cooler and wetter than I’d like but he could definitely identify. As would be expected, I said it’s’ different with cotton and he asked why, knowing he doesn’t like wet soybeans sitting in the field either!

Why is rain so bad on cotton at harvest time?

There are several reasons that I think it is especially bad for cotton to sit out in the rain. So many that I decided to take a brief break on the side of the highway as I headed back to St. Louis and shoot a short video. But of course I missed some stuff so I’m going to write out a few things as well as share the video.

Different Cotton Harvest Problems From Rain

Soil Compaction

Let’s face it, when rain is puddling up, you can’t take a big ol’ cotton picker through the field for a variety of reasons. But even when it just seems a bit damp, farmers worry about the soil. One thing farmers have to think about is getting equipment stuck in the field which is a real pain but going on a field when it is wet, also leads to rutting up the field (yes I can remember being not smart enough to rut up a yard). Compaction means the soils get tightly packed which makes it harder for roots to grow, for water to filter through, etc. If you compact the field in the fall, you may well end up doing field work in the spring.

Fiber Quality Losses

Have you ever left your favorite t-shirt wadded up in a ball after going to the gym? Or maybe left a wet towel somewhere? Well, if you have, you probably learned cotton can get mildewy or something when it is wet. Sometimes it leaves spots on the fabric too. Same thing can happen in the field and that means a reduced price because that cotton can’t be used for some of the nicer uses.

Stringout Can Lead to Yield Loss

Rain water can put a weight issue at play making cotton lint strain toward the ground. This issue of “stringout.” is a problem because often wind or rain actually turns that into fallout and then the cotton ends up on the ground instead of in a bale.

Picking & Ginning issues

If cotton lint is wet, it doesn’t play well with big machines! Cotton pickers pull the lint off of plants on spindles, so they twist the fiber a bit to pull it off. If the fiber is wet, it is more likely to get stuck and start jamming up the spindles/picker. The same kind of issues happen with the gin as saw are pulling fiber away. In fact, because of these issues, farmers pay close attention to dew during harvest and prefer to pick once the sun has dried things out.

While those picking and ginning may not sound like a big deal, they really are. Cottonseed is part of the process in the field and the gin and it is an oilseed which means it is flammable! Far too often, those of us in the cotton industry hear of a picker or gin fire. We can also hear about module fires (modules are the big ol heavily compacted ways we store cotton to take it to the gin.

Issues with Cottonseed

Another area of issues that people may not think about… the cottonseed seed coat (that hard outside that protects the embryo) can weaken with moisture. That not only means the seed gets soft, but the embyro may actually decide to come out early. What that means is basically, a new cotton plant tries to start growing right there in the boll! And even if that doesn’t happen, the softer seed coat can get nicked by the saws at the gin causing some real issues — I mean you don’t want little chips of cottonseed coat in your nice cotton sheets!

Getting Stuck

You may find it funny, but can you imagine getting a cotton picker stuck in the mud? The piece of equipment is expensive (hundreds of thousands of dollars) and time is of the essence in the fall. You don’t want to play around and get stuck. I know I wouldn’t! That would make me feel so stupid!

If you are interested in cotton, there are a lot of posts in the timeless cotton 101 series or simply in the cotton category. There are even a couple of posts about rain being a problem in 2012 and other seasons.

The post What cotton harvest problems can farmers have when it rains? appeared first on Hundred Percent Cotton.

A week  ago, I was driving to Memphis for the weekend and the drama of a bright, rich sunset with the rain lured me off my path. I took the chance to get off the interstate, and snapped a few photos in a couple of different places before finding a cotton farm at the perfect point of light. I snapped loads of photos and video on both my iPhone and my DSLR. I had to share a few pics from my phone immediately… this one grabbed me.

While some of my friends agreed that was a beautiful sight to behold, they weren’t as familiar with some of the other thoughts running through my mind as I stood in the light rain snapping photos. Knowing water was pooling up but could drain off that Delta field, but also wondering what the weather would be like for the next several days.

I turned to my cotton expert friends to ask them whether there are good and bad rains. A quick message thread on Facebook made it possible for me to check in with a few growing regions. I’ll put some of the photos I took that evening (no filters or editing!) along side the comments my friends had.

My friend Marjory Walker said her husband Bob (some of you may remember him giving my niece a first look at a cotton farm in Tennessee). She told me:

Bob says a slow and gentle rain over night, about 3/4 to an inch is usually a good rain. But it varies. Three inches in 15 minutes, a hard pounding rain, is usually a bad one.

A few hours south, Shea Whitfield in the Delta weighed in, looking a bit later into the season too: 

I will agree with what Marjory said. Also will add that once the cotton starts putting on fruit (editor’s note:  fruit is blooms, squares and bolls — the parts of the plant that will produce cotton lint later) the cloudy conditions that come along with the rain can be very detrimental by causing the plant to shed fruit. Also if we have been dry for quite a while a rain can jump-start the plant vegetatively and cause it to shed. So to answer your question sometimes it’s good and sometimes it’s bad.

When Shea looked at the panoramic photo above, he added:

Makes me think you need to get the planter back out if it was just planted and it sandy ground. Hard packing rain makes it tough for a little cotton plant to come up.

He couldn’t make out that this field had a good stand of cotton already but the other pictures here make that clear. Even without seeing these pics, challenges for seedlings came to mind.

My friend Barry farms on the High Plains of Texas. He hasn’t been seeing the regular rains the Mid-South has had so he has a bit of a different perspective.

The rains we have had the last couple of weeks looks a lot like this, and the cool wet weather has caused some seedling disease and loss of some fields. On the other hand, without rain, NOTHING grows. After the drought we have been through in west Texas, all rain is welcome.

And further west, in Arizona, Kevin Rogers is used to having to irrigate cotton to get it growing. He said:

If the rain hits after its watered up we are ok as long as it doesn’t pond up. If we get a rain before we get germination and a crust forms on the soil and we can’t keep it wet we will have to replant. Agree with all the comments! We also don’t want a heavy rain when the plant is opening up as we get close to harvest.

There’s another post on the site about how damaging rain is on cotton at harvest.
In the days since, we’ve had more rain and cooler temperatures. That’s not exactly cotton weather. It loves a drink now and then but otherwise cotton plants prefer it hot and drier. I hope we get some perfect cotton growing weather soon!

The post How does a big rain impact a cotton farm early in the season? 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.

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.

When I tell people I write a bunch of blog posts about cotton, I frequently get a quizzical look or a blank stare. Then when I explain a bit more, that I have worked with cotton farmers for a long time and I enjoy sharing what I’ve learned. Seems some folks wouldn’t think you could enjoy a fiber crop as much as I do this one and the people who grow it. And yet, I’m not alone.

Before I even get started listing them, I need to say I know I will miss some great bloggers who write about cotton. The great thing is I will keep updating this post so the list will grow! The blogs aren’t listed in any particular order either…. it was as much when I thought of them and where the cursor happened to be on the page as anything.

The Cotton Shedd

Tiffany Shedd of The Cotton Shedd in Arizona was brought to my attention years ago because she has such great ideas on decorating with cotton! And almost every time she posts a new creative way to decorate with cotton, someone will stumble on it and send me a link! If you are in the Phoenix area, you may want to watch for occasional workshops she holds where she teaches people to make something like the cotton wreath I have in my stairway. She has a bunch of beautiful greeting cards, coffee mugs, even covers for the iPhone 5 that feature some of her cotton artwork in an online store.

Kissed a Farmer

You may remember reading about Suzie & Daniel Wilde before — she wrote a guest post “A Colorful Life of Cotton Memories on a Texas Farm” for the series of posts I have of people who say cotton is the fabric of their lives. Her blog Kissed a Farmer and the Kissed a Farmer Facebook page She grew up the daughter of a cotton ginner and married a cotton farmer. She’s got the crop in her veins as she works in town touching the crop too! Suzie will be celebrating her blog’s one year anniversary soon.

FarmFresh The Blog

Kelly Whatley and her family have a cotton farm in South Texas. Her blog FarmFresh includes posts about family, football & farming. She’s a really good photographer and does beautiful cotton photos especially — I mean check out these cotton harvest shots! I’m always blown away by the scale of things in that part of Texas…. check out the planting equipment in this post and the windmills here. And I’ll never forget her and her sons taking time to show around Jake’s Flat Stanley…. Jake doesn’t have 4H at his school so it was all news to him.

Tales of a Cotton Wife

I met Aussie Bess Gairns, who writes a personal blog on the Cotton Australia site. She gets a lot of content up too! So much cotton content that she has broken it into these categories — Cotton Dictionary, A Cotton Season, Cotton Plants, Careers in Cotton, Cotton Research & Science, Industry News & Events and Other Things Around the Farm. She also is active on her Tales of a Cotton Wife Facebook page.

The Life of a Farm Wife

Stephanie Miller in Boaz, Alabama has a great blog called The Life of a Farm Wife. There are quite a few posts about growing cotton on their farm as well as posts about the other crops they grow including another Southern favorite peanuts! To help you get a feel for what they grow, she’ has a farming 101 page that highlights cotton, chicken, peanut and corn production. She also shares stories about all the other things that happen in the family…. birthday parties, building a house and more. They also post to their Miller Farms Facebook page.

Across the Branch

I’ve been following Ashlee’s blog Across the Branch for a couple of years having had a friend in Georgia flag it for me. She talks about her family and farm — it’s been fun watching the kids grow up. She has a page that links her “best of” posts on a variety of topics but you know my favorite would be about cotton! She has a great cotton elementary section and I have really enjoyed learning about another crop with her watermelon elementary too!

From the Tractor Seat

I first met Jillian when she was a student at Auburn, she was a sweet girl from the farm who had taken her first plane ride to New Orleans for the Beltwide Cotton Conference. A few years later I met her boyfriend Jared as he thought about planting his first cotton crop. Later they began From the Tractor Seat to tell their farm’s story. You’ll see they are too cute and they are excited about agriculture too! There are a good number of posts about the farm, different things they have going on, etc. few posts they have on cotton are all good ones!

The Road Less Traveled

Georgia cotton Farmer Trevor Smith grows cotton, peanuts and watermelons and now and then, puts his thoughts on his blog The Road Less Traveled. I met him on Twitter (he’s @GAFarmer80) and love that he explained his farm saying “My wife is the watermelon expert, being the daughter of a lifelong watermelon grower. She markets all the watermelons herself, last year over 150 semi loads. We are shareholders in Osceola Cotton Co. in Ocilla, GA, and Tifton Quality Peanuts in Tifton, GA. This helps to add additional value to the crops we produce.” on his about the farm page.

The Cotton Wife

Deciding to write a blog post like this I decided I should search for “cotton farm blog” on Google and loved that I found Jennifer Warthan aka The Cotton Wife. Jennifer’s a farm wife in Virginia. The blog is primarily a photography blog — she does some wildly popular photography training sessions! Looking at the families page of her blog you can tell she does beautiful work and that cotton is sometimes a member of the family!

Cotton Content on janiceperson.com

I figured showcasing the great cotton content all these other cotton bloggers have, I thought I’d remind you I have quite a bit on here too. So if you are interested in the way I organize the cotton content here on the blog, there are a few places you can find it. I keep this Cotton 101 series photo on my sidebar so you can always find some of the posts about the basics of cotton. Some of the great folks who share my passion for cotton have written guest posts. And because I like to write cotton content so often, I have a category where all things cotton are posted. I also have a Twitter list of cotton people to follow if you are on that channel.

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