While I was in Lubbock for work recently, I decided to add on a personal night so I could play in a couple of cotton fields!  There is something about Texas dryland cotton that has always captured my imagination — heck my first video post shows a really short glimpse at it. The crop is so similar and yet really different from the cotton that I get to see so often as I drive between my current home in St. Louis and my family’s hometown of Memphis.

But maybe before I get too far into this story, I should be sure we all understand what I’m talking about.

What is dryland cotton?

A lot of the U.S. Cotton Belt depends on rain for crops, it is telling that crops in the Southeast and Mid-South cause those crops rain-fed, but the Texas High Plains and some other areas of the state where rain is less common have always been called dryland crops.

This Year’s Texas Dryland Cotton Crop

This year, luckily, many Texas dryland farmers started the growing season with some moisture and many have had decent rains. That means the fields of dryland cotton look a good better than drier years. In fact, I did this video and realized it was still damp in the field which, if combined with some good hot weather for a couple of weeks, could really help create yield.

You’ll see how many cotton bolls the compact plants can put on… it is impressive how loaded the plants are. And I saw a lot of 5-lock bolls which is generally seen as an indicator of high yield potential.

The post The Texas Dryland Cotton Crop Looks Good This Year VIDEO appeared first on Hundred Percent Cotton.

I giggle now and then when a farming friend somewhere tags me in a photo on Facebook. It’s especially interesting when it’s somewhere I haven’t been or someone I haven’t seen in a very long time. I’ve had photos of trucks, animals, fields and big rigs tagged as me. That’s what was running through my mind when I saw a notification that Dane Sanders had tagged me in a photo.

Dane is a cotton farmer in South Plains, Texas — that’s just west of Plainview for those of you who don’t know. Here’s the photo he tagged me in:

The caption said: “Left side of photo is center pivot irrigation and at the right side is non-irrigated cotton.” Yes, there is that much of a difference in dryland and irrigated crops, especially in a drought year like this.

Cotton has the ability to put on a lot of bolls or very few. The plants on the right side don’t have much yield potential at all. The irrigated crop on the left has several fruiting branches on each plant. Each of those branches is able to produce multiple blooms and ultimately bolls that result in yield.

As I drove through southern Missouri & West Tennessee this weekend, I saw lots of blooms at the top of the plants…. that means there will be no more fruiting positions created on the plants (the plants have cut-out). I can’t be sure, but it looks like Dane’s crop could keep growing a bit. Dane could really use a downpour or two. His crop may still be able to use the water to produce more cotton. In Tennessee & elsewhere, rain is needed to help live up to the potential that’s there and to rebuild water tables. Finally, it would be nice to have some to take my lawn from brown to green.

I can’t help but remember how the image has struck me in the past. In fact, one of the first Cotton 101 blog posts I wrote was based on the comparison of dryland and irrigated cotton fields in Dane’s county. That day, I pulled out my video camera.

Lots of farmers in my thoughts these days as we all look to have food, fiber, fuel and more in the coming months!

The post Cotton 101: Impact of Irrigation / Drought on the Texas Cotton Crop (VIDEO) appeared first on Hundred Percent Cotton.

Several weeks ago I was in Texas for a field day & some meetings.  Threw this video together quickly and figured now that I’ve started the blog, I may as well just post it here.  No reason I should expect folks to go find it on YouTube.  Anyway, if you don’t know how important water is… just take a look!

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EWpg-G41xQ&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x234900&color2=0x4e9e00]

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