I absolutely wish I was in the Mississippi Delta Monday. There have been various times when I’ve missed the Delta since I left there well over a decade ago, but only a few of the occasions have had specific times and places to be.

All weekend I thought about ways I may be able to make it work while also knowing it was just not going to happen. That emotional pull to drive south is brought on by the loss of a dear friend, mentor, incredible innovator and humble leader – Kenneth Hood. I wanted to be in Duncan, MS to celebrate his life, mourn his loss and just be around others who realize this wasn’t a typical Monday.

When I got word of his passing, it was a bit disorienting.

Kenneth has been such a constant in the cotton business throughout my lifetime that I have trouble picturing the industry without him. But that sounds like he was some larger than life person, and he absolutely was, but when I moved to the Delta, he was also a neighbor. Granted, his place was 45 minutes away, but when you drive 30 minutes to go to the grocery store, the neighborhood is larger than most urban neighborhoods.

That neighbor status change let me have so many interactions with Kenneth, his wife Betty and various people on the farm (including the office manager and Kenneth’s brother). The access of being local and all, meant we had a lot of opportunities to find common ground.

Kenneth and I both enjoyed hosting people from around the world and helping them get to know our little part of the planet. We became such a regular combination on the agendas of various groups that we joked that we should do each other’s presentation to make it interesting!

But I seriously cannot imagine where we would be without Kenneth.

He was the first farmer who saw such incredible potential in digital technology that he was working with NASA years on how to apply satellite imagery & digital maps to his cotton fields before any of us had Google maps!

Whether a person was from a nearby town or from the other side of the planet, hospitality was always extended. He listened to others intently to understand their experiences and humbly offered his perspective as well.

Kenneth was the only farmer who came to mind when I’d get a call from a reporter who clearly had an agenda about herbicides but who I knew we needed to try with anyway. We knew Kenneth would steadily talk through his experience, doing everything a human could do to help the reporter understand how much weeds rob plants of water, nutrients, etc and that not controlling them would mean higher prices for his customers and a lot more headaches for him too. And he’d sit in awe of how calmly others did the same thing taking notes for the future.

He was the one who would tell you about a problem with something before spreading the word through the grapevine. He wanted to test new products and help find those things that would perform better for cotton farmers across the Belt. His insight on what was working and what wasn’t became critical to knowing a product had been thoroughly tested.

And when you had had a long day, spending too much time in the sun and dust, Kenneth would magically pull a cold drink out and sit down and start talking to you about the wonder of a five-lock cotton boll. You could see the stress of the day melting away and that sense of joy in being part of something so wholesome and natural as producing fiber that will clothe neighbors and people far away seems as miraculous to you as it should be.

I moved away from the Delta more than a decade ago, but I keep a lot of it with me and seeing Kenneth Hood and others immediately bring that back to the surface. I miss knowing that smile is out there, knowing at any time I could go around a corner at a meeting and see my dear friend and neighbor. And my heart breaks for Betty and the rest of the family.

Sending virtual hugs along with people in every corner of the cotton world. Kenneth was one of a kind and he will be forever missed.

The post We Will Long Miss Kenneth Hood appeared first on Hundred Percent Cotton.

Since I grew up a city girl, I didn’t how much about Wrangler jeans til I was going to college in Oklahoma. I still remember a girlfriend talking about how great guys looked wearing Wranglers and I was wondering to myself who she was talking about. Needless to say decades of working with family farmers and attending George Strait concerts, I understand that Wranglers are every bit as ubiquitous in that world as Levi’s jeans had been in mine. And I love seeing Wrangler commit to US cotton which am excited to pass along news of!

Wrangler’s Rooted Collection

Now Wrangler is driving that point home in a few new ways — they are marketing jeans and t-shirts that connect back to the family farms that grew them. The collection — Wrangler Rooted — connects to the farm, to US textile mills and more.

Grown, cut and sewn in the USA, the Wrangler Rooted Collection represents a triumph in sustainability. Featuring custom shanks, rivets, patches and pocket prints, the details of each premium jean are a nod to the tireless work ethic and responsible land stewardship of America’s cotton farmers. Each of the five designs includes features that tie these jeans back to healthy soils in each state.

Talking about Sustainability & Soil Health

The timing of the announcement seems perfect to me. I think Wrangler sees that more Americans are interested in the environmental footprint of the clothes they wear. Watching to the videos they have and reading the website, I especiallly noticed a discussion around two of the factors that I have seen a lot of interest in — soil and water.

Listening to cotton farmer Vance Smith from Texas talk about the soils and moisture on his farm in Big Spring, I get as excited as I was the first time I visited Mr Ray on his Louisiana farm! Vance talks about the way his farm saves water, moving to drip irrigation, and how exciting it is to find moisture in the spring, the ways they have reduced tillage, are using cover crops,

Family Farms Growing Cotton for Wrangler

When I first saw the news, I looked through the list anxiously and as I did, I realized that many of the farmers were people I have known for decades. These aer farmers who have been looking for ways to improve their farms as long as I have known them. And Wrangler is sharing the farmer’s stories on the jeans, in ads and on the Wrangler Rooted website.

The company has started with two states and two families — the Newby family in Alabama and the Smiths in Big Spring, Texas — there are Tennessee and North Carolina jeans / farmers.

Watching the videos, I immediately want to buy some of the products! Here’s the video of the Newbys…. Jerry (the older gentleman who starts the video) has a heart of gold. Although I don’t know his children and grandchildren as well, I have met them several times and they seem to carry that trait too. The video captures the family I know well.

Interested in Hearing More?

I have to tell you, looking at this project, it goes beyond win-win.

Environmentally

Having a major brand like Wrangler take the time to go indepth on sustainability matters. Individually there is so much that can be done but with scale for good that a major brand has… well, that brings lots of individual efforts to a greater scale. And in fact, even though I didn’t know this was coming, I had hoped to be on a panel with the sustainability lead for Wrangler’s parent company talking about just this sort of thing last year when we porposed grow to sew for SXSW Interactive.

Quality

Looking at all the details on the jeans, it looks like Wrangler is thinking about it all. The jeans seems to wear the state with pride. There is a state map on the button at the waist and on the leather tag on the back pocket and the inside pockets are incredible!

Supporting US Jobs

Over the last few decades, more and more textiles have been moving out of the US as people looked for cheaper clothes. This return to high quality, provides the pricing cushion that allows more of the work to be done in the United States. And I have to tell you, I’m personally willing to pay more for quality that also provides jobs here. Obviously, I love the fact that cotton farming families are being featured for all the great work they are doing. That may be a bit selfish though as someone who’s worked with cotton so long.

It Feels Good

I just like the idea of knowing the back story on some things. And having had decades of knowing families like the Newbys, I have so much confidence in the products they produce and that just makes me smile. I think I may wait for the Tennessee products coming later this summer since I’m a Memphis girl, but who knows…. some of the Texas & Alabama stuff looks great!

You may see more about this on Hundred Percent Cotton! I am looking forward to seeing more!

The post Wrangler Jeans Shows They are Rooted with Cotton from Family Farms 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.

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 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.

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.

A couple of months ago, I saw one of these photos posted in one of the Facebook groups for farmers that I am in. I asked at the time that I be able to put it on my blog (since I love cotton so much). The photographer — family farmer Sue Leggett from North Carolina — said sure and offered to send me a few of the photos from her farm.  I recently found that email and realized I had totally dropped the ball!

I love what she’s done!

During harvest season, farmers compact cotton into these big modules to be able to store them short-term til the crop gets to the gin. Farmers put a code number for the field they picked in and occasionally something else. The Leggetts did some simple math on theirs, it just results in big numbers! Knowing what can be made from one bale of cotton and that there are approximately 13-15 bales in a module (they’d know better since they know variety & about the weather), here’s what they saw being produced from the cotton in this field! And I bet it made some folks look!

cotton field ready to be harvested

several cotton modules in the field after harvest ( some folks think these are called bales but they are modules

This one module of cotton will make 24,000 t-shirts! Another will make 3,600 pairs of men’s jeans!

These modules can make 36,000 diapers and 12,000 bath towels!

If you are interested in learning more about cotton, let me know what questions you have or feel free to browse the cotton 101 section where I give some of the basics of my favorite fiber!

Related articles

• Reasons for optimism exist for cotton industry
• Intercropping helps Georgia farmers save money, time and resources
• Cotton Gin in Kansas Made Me Pump My Brakes

The post How Much Cotton is in That Field or Module? appeared first on Hundred Percent Cotton.

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

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

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

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

What do the signs mean?

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

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

Who puts the signs up?

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

Related articles

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

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

I wanted to be sure this series was inclusive of various perspectives when I started it, so I asked a few social media friends who I thought may have a perspective not always represented in commercials about cotton, etc. to contribute. Matt Peregoy of TheRealMattDaddy.com was one of the folks who came to mind. I met Matt through #DadChat on Twitter (he’s @RealMattDaddy).

He’s a dad who points out the absurdity of people saying a dad will be babysitting — whether its a mom or dad spending time with their kids, they are parenting. I really respect that he speaks up for a viewpoint that hasn’t always been the mainstream but is becoming more common everyday. I love how Matt ends the post and would love to know your answer to his question!

When Janice asked me to write some thoughts from a dad’s point of view about cotton, I really wasn’t sure what it would lead to.  I usually write things that are creative and funny on my own blog.  How creative and funny can I be about a plant that looks like this?

But after thinking about it for a while, I realized that I truly take for granted all of the things that are made of cotton.  Heck, it was probably the way my wife looked in those cotton jeans that made me interested in getting to know her back in high school!  Now that I’m an at-home dad, I literally use dozens of things that are made of cotton every single day.

When I wake up in the morning to the sound of my toddler yelling for us to wake up, I throw off my cotton sheets, put on my cotton t-shirt, shorts and socks, and go change my daughter’s diaper using wipes and diapers that both contain cotton.  After getting her out of her cotton pajamas and into some comfy clothes that most likely contain cotton, we head downstairs for breakfast.  After breakfast, my daughter watches Sesame Street on a couch with a cotton-stuffed pillow while holding her Sesame Street plush characters that, no doubt, include cotton fibers.  When I’m finished cleaning up the dishes, we usually go outside dressed in our cotton sweat shirts.  I could literally walk you through my entire cottony day like this!

Living in one of the richest nations in the world, we have the benefit of seeing a finished product when we put on our favorite pair of jeans.  We don’t see the process that a cotton boll goes through in order to turn into those jeans.  I have tried to teach my daughter important things like where her food comes from, that gardening and self sufficiency are important, and we have a responsibility to be good stewards of our resources.  I also want her to learn that every finished product has a beginning, and that beginning usually starts with some kind of farmer whether corn, cotton, livestock or even trees.  I don’t want to raise a child that is blissfully unaware of what she is consuming.  I’d like her to be conscious of that and be doing her part to be a responsible steward of the planet she lives on.

I don’t just want her to know that Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin and the cotton farmer’s biggest enemy is the boll weevil; I want her to know that cotton is a resource, like all other crops, that is to be responsibly managed, responsibly harvested, and not wasted.  I want her to get the connection that behind every piece of cotton fabric is a farmer working hard to make that raw material.  I’ll do my part to teach my kid.  Will you do yours?

The post A Dad’s Point of View on Cotton appeared first on Hundred Percent Cotton.