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.

For days, I check on several friends each time I hop on social media. I have been watching to see how they are in dealing with Hurricane Harvey bearing down on them. First concerns are for the people, but I can’t help looking to see how the farms are doing. Hurricanes have ripped through friends’ crops too many times, I’ve seen farmers prepare for hurricanes and deal with the aftermath.

When a friend sent me a message asking me questions about cotton in Harvey, I decided to talk with my dear friends Kelly and Jon Whatley who grow cotton, milo and more in South Texas. They have already faced what we hope is the worst of it in their area, so took a bit of time to help me understand how it is going.

First, I am glad to have seen you posting that you are all fine. Can you tell me what the storm was like in its height where you are? What’s it like today?

Very noisy. Landfall was at night, so we couldn’t see what was flying around or how bad it looked. We are in the middle of a field with no protection, but that also means no neighbor’ debris flying around either. Saturday morning, we woke up to water standing in the yard and lots of limbs down, tree and plant debris. We had power Friday night until around 8:00 PM. Luckily we have a generator that runs off a tractor’s PTO shaft so we have had electricity.

What you have heard from friends and family along the coast? What’s it like for them?

Yes. Some total devastation other very little damage. One friend (Hannah Miller) lost contact with her family near Rockport in the height of the storm but ended up locating them after some scary hours of not knowing. Her family’s home and farms are terribly damaged but her family is safe. Friends in Aransas Pass and Rockport will be assessing the damage and working to clean up/repair for a long time.

(Editor’s note — I was watching Hannah’s updates closely. She evacuated but some family stayed behind. She’s since returned to the area with supplies to help.)

Any estimates on how long it will take to get power back and other services, etc?

Some people are getting power back now. Officials are saying it could be up to 10 days for some areas. Our house is the very end of our line. I am afraid we may be the very last to get electricity back. Most water districts are on a boil notice if they even have water. Electricity for the pumps to fill the water towers still hasn’t been restored. We have never lost water.

I had watched cotton harvest with such excitement. If you backed up the clock to two weeks ago, what would you have told me about the 2017 crop? (Here’s photo from July — how cute are they?!?!)

I would have told you we were looking at a fantastic crop with historical cotton high yields. It was the best cotton crop of our 24 crops. Spirits were high in the South Texas farming community.

Where are you now? Modules in the field? Some of the crop ginned?

All of our crops are totally harvested. There was cotton sitting on every spot on all the gin yards in the Coastal Bend. 50% of our cotton had been ginned. Rest at gin yard or fields. The ginners try to store the unginned modules on pads or higher ground, but when it comes to a hurricane, all bets are off. The tarps help protect the cotton some, but many tarps blew off. The round bales/modules are better protected since they cover more cotton surface.

Here are some of the photos Kelly’s taken (remember she’s on my list of top farm Instagrammers for a reason). I’ll try to explain what we are looking at. This first one is a shot of modules (some round and some rectangular, some call the round ones round bales) waiting to go to the gin. 

You can see some of them are sitting in standing water.

What about other crops? Neighbors up the coast?

Other crops harvested here. Up the coast, early news is devastation for unharvested crops. Reports of gins closer to the coast heavily damaged with modules blown away.

I’ve heard conflicting information on crop insurance, can you tell us what you have found out?

Crop insurance covers historical value, not value in the field. This was a banner crop and the insurance levels does not meet banner yield levels. There are huge deductibles, and we are not to the point to know details yet. Crop insurance is not very helpful at this late stage. We don’t know how it will all shake out since we’ve never been in this situation.

What happens next for the farms in that area?

First we have to dry out & assess the damage. We found some trees that took out fence sections at the ranch, so we will get to fixing those first to keep the cattle contained. We are used to waiting on Mother Nature, and will have to wait for the rain to stop.

How will the farmers in Texas deal with all those wet modules? How will they dispose of them?

Again, the waiting game. Have to let the modules dry out. Then assess if the cotton is ginnable or not. One of the problems with agriculture – nothing is immediate. We have to wait for nature.

The cleanup everywhere else may be over but the gins and farmers will just be getting to the point to make decisions. Even if the cotton is ginnable, the quality is much lower. Cotton is graded on quality, so the grades will take a hit. In turn, the farmer will get less money for his cotton.

More photos to share and understand what they are looking at from being ginnable, maintaining quality, etc. Some of the problems are similar to dealing with rain at harvest time because with all the water and warm temperatures, some of the seed that is still sitting in the module may start to sprout. Jon’s finger is pointing to a root that has emerged from a seed and if you look closely you can see several more. That really is difficult on a gin that is designed dry cotton lint and cotton seed.

This photo shows how incredibly bad the wind has been. The field that you are looking at had been picked. Winds from Harvey beat up the rectangular modules so much, it seems to have twisted the fiber back onto the plants! I couldn’t have imagined….

But this photo is even more illustrative of the point the Whatleys made… the round bales / modules definitely held together in the wind better. You can see that the plants in that section of the field are showing up as dark swaths. Wow.

Thoughts will stay with them for the coming future… Kelly said they may have some drone footage to share soon, but for now, there is more work to do.

The post How is Hurricane Harvey Impacting Texas Cotton Farmers? appeared first on Hundred Percent Cotton.

I have to say, it is unusual for me to listen to a podcast episode and immediately think that not only do I need to tweet out the link, but I need to go the extra mile and write a blog post. In fact, I can’t think of one but Saturday morning Twitter delivered me something unusual and I want to share it with the folks who subscribe to the blog.

As I hopped online, I checked the “in case you missed it” tweets and something from fellow cotton lover Jess Lehmann jumped out. It was this tweet:

My mentor Dr Robert Mensah his research journey & I’m proud to have helped along the way#Biological #Cotton #SeroX https://t.co/MxMEBcT6an pic.twitter.com/VRRFMKfPWo

— Jess Lehmann (@lehmann_jess) July 15, 2017

Having a shared love of the natural fiber, immediately made me think I should check this out. Besides, I’m always up for learning about Australian cotton, new research on the crop and I wasn’t familiar with Dr. Mensah.

I love that Dr. Mensah talks about growing up in Ghana. The section talking about his father’s role as witch doctor — not a cartoon version you may see on TV but a protector and medicine man for his village — is so compelling!

So, by the time he talks about how he talks about how he pairs his father’s bush skills with the advanced science he has studied…. And how that is helping him narrow down some of the traits in the field to test for….. well, I can only imagine how incredible it is to work in the field with him!

You should be absolutely ready to listen to this episode now so get your headphones on or hit that speaker button once you hit play. I’d love to hear your thoughts too!

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There is nothing else like it for me….. seeing cotton fields at sunset is totally unique. The softness of the colors of the sky and the soft textures of fiber tufting out from the rough and rugged plants is captivating.

And after a decade or so of having that out my office window and on my daily drive, it is something that truly does call me home. Over the years, if you follow this blog, you have seen more than a few photos of cotton bolls and cotton pickers. Since my move to St. Louis five years ago, I have found myself stopping along the roads between here and Memphis on weekend evenings trying to capture the light.

It may surprise you though that it has been years since I took my spot in the buddy seat of a cotton picker. This year, my trip to Texas so close to cotton harvest convinced me I simply couldn’t go any longer without seeing harvest up close so I took a few days off work to my head back into my favorite crop at the most beautiful time of year.

Starting with Missouri bootheel cotton on Thursday and checking out some Mississippi crops Friday and Saturday was just what the doctor ordered!

I’ll give you a look at a few of the I snapped as I started my harvest weekend in this post and will then have several more posts to explain some of the photos and share more photos in the coming weeks!

These striking cotton harvest photos were all taken on Charles Parker’s farm in the Missouri Bootheel.  Appreciate his son-in-law Alan pointing me to the perfect field to capture the sunset!

If you have any questions after looking at these photos, please don’t hesitate to ask! I’ll be writing more!

The post Capturing the Light of Cotton Fields at Sunset — Photo Post appeared first on Hundred Percent Cotton.

This time of year, cotton plants start holding a special kind of allure…. there are lots of beautiful blooms and farmers are getting a good feel for what harvest will bring! And aerial cotton photos especially grab my imagination!

My dear friend Marjory and her colleague Lance couldn’t stay in the office any more and they got out on  her family’s Walker Farms and started snapping photos. When I saw some of the photos, I had to ask if I could share them! She said sure and sent along a little message:

The cotton crop on Walker Farms is progressing nicely,  about ten days away from cut out.  Cut out, for those not familiar with the term, is when the plant reaches maturity (economic maturity) for most bolls not to be harmed by pests. (Editor’s note:  I included cut-out in my cotton dictionary too.)

The next step is for the plant to continue maturing, bolls will speckle, fiber matures and in approximately three – four weeks, the plant will be defoliated (leaves removed) for harvest. Currently, we are irrigating due to the lack of rain.

In-Crop Photos

Here’s a photo looking at the crop from the turnrow (the edge of the field where tractors and all turn to go down the next rows).

And then Lance moved in closer.

See how beautiful the cotton crop is when it is in bloom?

Aerial Cotton Shots

Lance also snagged some shots with a drone getting the Walkers a great set of aerial cotton shots that we had to share.

In this first one you can see how roads, trees and grassways all border the field…. and if you look closely, you can see the cars at the turn in for the field!

Taken from the other direction, you can’t help but notice how much better the crop’s color is and you see the corn field across the road to the right. And I have to say you see some uneven spots in the field where plants faced some challenges… my guess is that is where some water stood early in the season.

Don’t the photos just grab your imagination? Who wants to make a harvest trip with me in the next couple of months? Not sure what you’d be getting into? Check out these photos from cotton harvest and learn more about cotton generally.

The post Love These Aerial Cotton Photos of Tennessee’s Walker Farms appeared first on Hundred Percent Cotton.

In October, I spent several days in Memphis. On one trip, you may remember I got stuck in the mud on a turnrow in a cotton field and I became one of the problems cotton farmers can have when it rains at harvest time! A couple of weeks later, I returned to Memphis and with really nice weather, I decided it was a weekend for me to get back out on a farm. My buddy Bob who had shown one of my city kid niece’s around and he was up to the challenge of taking on another when until he had problems with a picker. So I called Allen’s farm and asked if I could come their way, they were gracious enough to point me to a field where a picker would be rolling.

This October, it was a teenage niece. One who had only a little experience on a cotton farm and it was five years ago!! For those of you who have read my blog since the start (if anyone has stuck with me PLEASE let me know! It feels like it has been forever!) And comparing the photo we took as we headed out, I think you’ll agree that a lot has changed since the two of us went to a cotton field together.

Oh…. and yes, I think it is clear… my niece shares a passion for cotton and agriculture! Granted, she is probably a bit more reserved with her enthusiasm these days, but I loved seeing the excitement of discovery!

Five years later, having organized a bit of a visit, we had a lot more adventure to check out so I’ll be putting together several posts on our day’s adventure! Here are some of the key elements of the day that will be featured in posts are:

• Checking Out a Soybean Field
• Getting Up Close to Cotton
• Picking Cotton & Making Modules
• Riding the Tractor & Moving Round Modules
• Standing on Top of the World
• Visiting the Cotton Gin

The post Two City Girls on the Farm for a Day appeared first on Hundred Percent Cotton.

October is devoted to raising awareness in breast cancer. We see the NFL and Delta Airlines go pink to raise awareness but what can a cotton farmer do? How can you tell when a cotton farmer is committed to something? Well, the best examples are clear to the eye! October brings harvest time and modules are a great canvas for making a statement. And it seems a lot of them have gone pink this month!

Yes, cotton farmers have been showing their support of breast cancer research. My friend Marjory caught this on a gin yard in Greenwood, Mississippi the first of October.

And then I saw Cannon & Heidi Michael from California (he’s @agleader on Twitter) popping up pink today and I couldn’t put off posting this any longer. Think about how many people can be prompted to think pink when they roll past round modules that big wrapped in pink!

And I have to share one of my favorite t-shirts. I found out about it a couple of years ago around the same time of year as a community was hosting an event to raise money for research & support.

The post Cotton Farmers are Raising Awareness in Breast Cancer 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.

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

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