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.

Although most people think of cotton in it’s final mature state, it’s important to remember that cotton has to grow from seed throughout the season to get to that point. And it’s amazing how often I’ve had folks ask me about something they’ve seen in a field as they were driving by, like this recent tweet from Sam Wildman:

@JPlovesCOTTON so I'm driving though Georgia today wondering if its cotton season & what a cotton field (cont) http://tl.gd/9fngdm

— Sam Wildman (@TheSamWildman) March 25, 2011

So, I thought I’d put together some photos here, that will help me reply to hopefully lots of interest in southern fields! So let’s look at cotton plants and fields different times of year.

Planting Cotton (US typically begins mid-March & goes through May)

Cotton seed for planting is sold in both bags of 40-60 pounds — since seed size varies, the bag weights vary by variety. And its also sold in bulk boxes which farmers say provides them a way to get planters filled more quickly & efficiently to keep tractors moving. As I mentioned in a post on planting considerations, some farmers plant on beds  and others plant on flat ground. Similarly some use small planters and others use enormous planters on the back of the tractor.

Early-Season Cotton

Cotton always looks so vulnerable to me when its a seedling. The plants move much like sunflowers in those earliest days as cotton loves sun and heat (sort of like me that way!) The plants are usually dropped with a few inches of space between though some are dropped in twos or threes depending on the planting equipment which makes the plants seem even more spread out early on. Whereas corn and soybeans can appear to be at a 90 degree angle to the soil, cotton’s leaves look more parallel with the soil.

Mid-Season Cotton

The plants bush up with fruiting and reproductive branches quickly assuming there is good heat and sunshine. The leaves of most upland varieties are broad and remain largely parallel to the soil to provide a lot of photosythetic energy. When I’m driving along a highway, reminding myself about the different leaf shape and angle is what distinguished the two crops for me as many soybeans are planted on similar row patterns in the south and one you near canopy it can be hard to see the difference in planting population.

Cotton During Fruiting

I think cotton blooms are beautiful and my friend, California farmer Cannon Michael thinks Pima flowers are so pretty, they were the first flowers he gave a girlfriend who later became his wife. The plant produces blooms that are a creamy yellow bud that will open mid-day and self-pollinate (meaning no bees, wind, etc is needed) that afternoon. By the following mornings, the pinkish hue begins to develop and the bloom changes color indicating pollination has occurred. The bloom dries up and a small bloom forming at the bloom’s base pushes the dry petals off the plant. That boll gets really hard and grows using a lot of the energy photosynthesis provides.

Harvest Time Plants and Fields (US typically begins in September & goes through December)

As days begin to shorten and heat units are reduced, the amount of energy in the cotton plant also goes down. Leaves begin to change color and drop off and bolls begin to crack and continue opening to show the mature fiber insider. That’s when the fun of harvest gets started!

After Cotton Harvest, There’s Still Work to Do

Cotton harvest equipment leaves the crop in the field til module trucks come to transport the seed cotton to the gin for processing. Farmers also want to cut all the stalks down near the ground & shred them to minimize over-wintering by insect pests. For many areas that prefer to plant on a raised bed, farmers will do this field work in the fall, allowing the soil to store moisture and “mellow” over the rainy season. In some areas, farmers may plant a winter crop of wheat which may be harvested before another crop is put in the ground.

Hope that helps you get the picture!

Pulling the photos together from a few years of living in the Cotton Belt was a lot of fun and I hope it helps you get a picture of what our rural roadsides look like through the year. I’m sure some of the descriptions were brief and I may have left questions. Would be glad to use your ideas for future Cotton 101 posts as I plan to build the series over the coming season. Ask whatever comes to mind in the comments and I’ll see what I can do on answers! There are a few Cotton 101 posts on this page and you should feel free to check out the latest posts with the Cotton 101 tag too and hear from people who love cotton (either as a farm or fiber product) check out the Cotton Guest post category!

The post Cotton 101: What does a cotton plant or field look like? appeared first on Hundred Percent Cotton.

I thought I may need to warn a few of you…. I have a lot of cotton content building up in my head (on my cameras & harddrives too!). And what’s worse is I’ve convinced my niece who’s living with me to join the cause (I hope it is voluntary on her part, read this to understand). Last weekend we spent a few hours at a friend’s farm. We’ve gotten started on some things to post but expect a lot to roll out next week! In fact, she’s working on a blog post for Monday about her first farm experience.

Photos and video are a crazy reality in my family. So if I was shooting video, she had my DSLR. If I was shooting the DSLR, she was probably shooting video. Yes, we took plenty of time to just soak it up too, but I think she enjoyed capturing the day, crop, equipment & people as much as I did. Well, except I really enjoyed sharing it with her. So maybe my day WAS better.

To whet your appetite, here is one of the photos she snapped and picked out. It is a close up of a cotton boll. There are a few key parts of cotton bolls (if I get anything wrong here, I trust someone will help me get it right) that we started our day talking about:

• The part that holds the seed & lint onto the plant, you can see it separating two separate tufts, that is called the bract. Earlier in the season, that provides the protection for the fiber as it develops & matures. At harvest, they are tough like tree bark and can cut up your hands if you aren’t careful.
• The fiber grows in 4-5 small tufts called locks.
• Each lock contains a few seed and the lint is tightly attached to that seed.  You can feel the see in there pretty quickly.

I hope you are ready to come back & catch the rest of the posts in the Cotton 101 series.  If you’d like to know when a new post goes up, you can request email be sent to you (promise the email address is guarded) by subscribing above right or by entering the RSS into your reader.

If you have any cotton questions, PLEASE SPEAK UP! I’d love to answer any questions that are out there.

(Anytime you see the Cotton 101 logo above, you can find any posts on the topic as the photo is hyperlinked. )

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