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.

Over the last two weeks, I have seen some really neat 12 days of Christmas posts. And along the way, I got inspired to put together the “12 Days of Cotton.” Seemed like a fun thing to do. I wrote it down last week and am just getting it to the blog. I hope you enjoy it and you could sing along, at least in your head.

Rather than write out every verse that keeps building, I will cut to the chase. I’m even going to be goofy enough to sing 12 Days of Cotton if you want to give it a listen.

On the twelfth day of cotton, some fiber love I see…

12 farmers farming

11 DD60s

10 Pima shirts

9 designer labels

8 ginners ginning

7 pesky insects

6 row picker

5 bales an acre!

4 warm hoodies

3 good rains

2 cotton socks

and a favorite pair of jeans!

In case any of you are interested in a bit more information on each of the things I included in the lyrics…. here’s some background information.

• 12 farmers farming — Well there are more than 12 cotton farmers for sure, but at a moment’s notice, I can always rattle off a dozen or so names of cotton farmers who are great friends. Who’s on the list really varies based on what I’ve been thinking of that day or week though as there are so very many great people who grow my favorite fiber!  Here are some of them who talk cotton online:
  • Texas’ Suzie Brasher Wilde through her Kissed a Farmer blog and Facebook page
  • Alabama’s Brian Byrd is on Twitter as ?@bigbyrd24 and just finished picking this weekend
  • Georgia’s Trevor Smith is on Twitter and blogging as GAFarmer80
  • Australia’s WarraBoy Brendan Taylor tweets cotton from down under
  • Georgia’s Ashlee blogs at Across the Branch about her family & their cotton & watermelon farm
  • Tennessee’s Bob Walker showed my niece Alicia around her first cotton farm visit.
  • Texas couple Jon and Kelly Whatley are both on Twitter and she has a photo &  family blog called FarmFresh.
  • The Texas Cotton Producers put this together to share their story.
  • California’s Travis Fugitt shares info through his Twitter account @tfugitt and I put some of his pics on my blog.
  • North Carolina’s Brad Warren tweets his crop and recently finished harvest.
  • Oklahoma’s Danny Robbins tweets from @rdr5hunter
  • Australia’s Bess Gairns tells Tales of a Cotton Wife on her blog and has a Facebook page for it too
  • and in case those aren’t the twelve cotton farmers you want to find, I have a list of cotton peeps who tweet you can follow.

• 11 DD60s — This one may be something a few of you aren’t familiar with. I know I wasn’t til I started being surrounded by cotton physiologists! Anyway, DD60s (pronounced D D sixties) are heat units based on temperatures above 60 degrees. Farmers compile this information so they know how the crop is developing. You can learn more about DD60s here.
• 10 Pima shirts — A lot of people are surprised by how soft and yet strong Pima shirts, sheets, etc are. It’s because Pima cotton has longer finer, strong fiber. I wrote a post about Pima cotton & what makes it different a few months ago that you may find interesting.
• 9 designer labels — Great folks work with my favorite fiber! You can get good clothes without spending a lot of money or you can go for really high end fashion that’s more expensive. It is really up to you! You can learn about them through the TheFabricofOurLives.com or @CottonFashion on Twitter.
• 8 ginners ginning — Cotton farmers and consumers depend on a variety of jobs to get that natural fiber from the farm to our wardrobes. One of the ones that just seemed to fit the song was cotton ginners who gin the cotton separating the seed and lint. Here’s a look inside a cotton gin.
• 7 pesky insects — The boll weevil maybe the insect that most people know, but cotton is really attractive to some bad bugs — beet armyworms can really instill fear as can bollworms, budworms, plant bugs, aphids, white flies and more! Mississippi State Extension has a lot of information on the bugs that plague cotton farms. And farmers have a variety of ways to control bugs.
• 6-row picker — The first time you see a six-row cotton picker going across a field of cotton, you may flashback to Star Wars or something! They are hulking machines who do the work of bringing a crop in for most US farmers even if they are four- or five-row pickers. Incredible to watch them run! Here’s some video of a cotton picker from this fall.
• 5 bales an acre! — The phrase alone excites me — five bales an acre! That means a farmer would be harvesting approximately 2,500 pounds of lint in the area that football is played on. While five bales to the acre is rare — the average harvest is closer to 1 – 2 bales an acre but there are farmers who can harvest more depending on the weather conditions, etc.
• 4 warm hoodies — It’s winter! Everyone needs a good hoodie or 12!
• 3 good rains — Water is a must and this year with the drought that plagued most of the Cotton Belt, we would have loved just three good rains! We will dream for a bit more in 2013!
• 2 cotton socks — You can make a bunch of socks out of a bale — more than two thousand pairs actually!
• and a favorite pair of jeans! — My favorite pair of jeans is one that is three sizes smaller than the pair I wore at this time last year! Lee Jeans sent them to me after I featured a photo from their Facebook page on my blog.

———

And now that it is 2018… I decided to do a video!

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Janice Person (@jplovescotton) on Dec 16, 2018 at 6:11pm PST

The post The 12 Days of Cotton — My Christmas Homage to My Favorite Natural Fiber appeared first on Hundred Percent Cotton.

Each Monday, I get the USDA-NASS Crop Progress and Condition Report. And I frequently think I should share it with others — at least the cotton parts. But today, I am going to do it instead of just thinking about it! The report shows data for the stages of the crop we are in each week. Knowing that a lot of my corn farming friends have done posts, I figured it was time we weighed in for cotton. There are some words that you may not be familiar with so I’ll add pictures and some info to try and make sure this makes sense!

Cotton Squares

When the plant goes into fruiting mode (starts putting on blooms/flowers), the buds are very small and some folks think that the earliest part of the bud looks squared a bit cause there are generally four sides. Because the square is so small, it can be especially vulnerable to damage by insects so scouts tend to check them to make sure nothing is going to get in the way. Pinhead by the way refers to the size of the square/bud! Since Suzie Brasher Wilde posted a great album of cotton fruiting photos today on her Kissed a Farmer Facebook page and I’ve borrowed one of a square.

photo of a cotton square via Kissed a Farmer

So this week, the data on squaring shows that the vast majority of the Cotton Belt is seriously in fruiting mode! That’s a good thing. A little rain and some cooling at night may help that fruit stay on the plant.

Cotton Squaring - Selected States
[These 15 States planted 99% of the 2011 cotton acreage]
-----------------------------------------------------------------
                 :            Week ending            :           
                 :-----------------------------------:           
      State      : July 22,  : July 15,  : July 22,  : 2007-2011 
                 :   2011    :   2012    :   2012    :  Average  
-----------------------------------------------------------------
                 :                    percent                    
                 :                                               
Alabama .........:     60          91          96         80     
Arizona .........:     89          90          92         91     
Arkansas ........:     98         100         100         99     
California ......:     79          85          90         89     
Georgia .........:     77          91          93         85     
Kansas ..........:     76          79          83         85     
Louisiana .......:    100          98         100         98     
Mississippi .....:     96          98          99         98     
Missouri ........:     89          90          98         94     
North Carolina ..:     93          90          92         96     
Oklahoma ........:     40          52          60         64     
South Carolina ..:     80          80          85         84     
Tennessee .......:     91          84          93         96     
Texas ...........:     70          76          87         76     
Virginia ........:     94          90          98         85     
                 :                                               
15 States .......:     76          82          90         82     
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Cotton Setting Bolls

Setting bolls is really important because blooms/fruit/flowers can fall off the plant, pollination can fail, insects can leave damage or other things can interfere with the plant’s ability to really produce on the fruiting positions it has. Getting bolls set on the plant is critical. The photo above shows a boll that has grown fairly well on the left and just above to the right is a younger boll.

The average this year is higher than normal but you can see some states are lagging. That leaves farmers wondering whether they will have the yields they’d like — it’s especially an issue in drought-stricken areas. Cotton is a perennial plant we grow on annual schedules so cotton as a plant is most interested in the plant’s survival versus its reproduction. It always figures there will be another shot next year. ro

Cotton Setting Bolls - Selected States
[These 15 States planted 99% of the 2011 cotton acreage]
-----------------------------------------------------------------
                 :            Week ending            :           
                 :-----------------------------------:           
      State      : July 22,  : July 15,  : July 22,  : 2007-2011 
                 :   2011    :   2012    :   2012    :  Average  
-----------------------------------------------------------------
                 :                    percent                    
                 :                                               
Alabama .........:    35          39          76          43     
Arizona .........:    59          55          60          62     
Arkansas ........:    79          87          92          80     
California ......:    49          45          60          58     
Georgia .........:    47          59          67          50     
Kansas ..........:     6          19          26          10     
Louisiana .......:    91          75          87          82     
Mississippi .....:    56          63          80          70     
Missouri ........:    45          19          31          56     
North Carolina ..:    72          28          40          64     
Oklahoma ........:     4           9          16          17     
South Carolina ..:    42          20          35          30     
Tennessee .......:    40          37          55          54     
Texas ...........:    31          25          35          30     
Virginia ........:    39          10          40          48     
                 :                                               
15 States .......:    41          36          47          42     
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Cotton Condition

With all those numbers, where are we? Well, the reality is those numbers only show whether plants are fruiting. They could really be misconstrued. Just because plants are setting fruit & bolls, doesn’t mean they are on track. Drought can keep cotton plants from growing to normal heights and with the high temperatures, the plants can be pushed into fruiting too early. That means the plant may not produce as many blooms and bolls as they would in a normal year. The other thing to consider is how well the bolls are developing. But this year, the challenges cotton has are much lower than the challenges corn farmers have.

And in fact, some areas are doing pretty well. I’ve seen a couple of California farmers out there posting photos of six lock bolls! For those of you who aren’t familiar with locks, they are the sections of the cotton boll. Usually the more locks, the more seed and with more seed, comes more lint!  Here’s what it looks like:

A photo from Travis Fugitt in Bakersfield, CA of a 6 lock boll on left and 5 lock on the right.

To see what Travis and I are looking at, look at the boll the same way you would a pie chart. You want to see how many sections there are on the boll. Here’s what we see:

The way Travis & I see yield potential in a cotton boll! Counting the locks of cotton.

Each of those sections will produce cotton unless something happens so we have a crop with some excellent potential in some areas. To look forward to what these may look like in a few months, check out my post from last fall when I shared a pic of a couple of five-lock bolls that a friend gave me…. They are beautiful. And used to be really rare, like four-leaf clovers. We all prefer looking at that side of cotton production rather than short plants, blooming out the top with a few small bolls forming on them. But that’s what some folks are seeing this year. We tend not to take and share photos of that though. Some of the folks in Texas and Oklahoma are facing drought conditions for a second year in a row. That is the sort of thing that can really wear on your positive outlook.

By and large though, as you can see from the final USDA cotton chart, it is pretty clear that the cotton crop is fairing better than the corn crop in the Midwest. And unlike the corn crop, a lot of cotton varieties still have the potential to put on more fruit. The plants are nearing cut-out though and that means we need to make the most of it quickly! That can turn a fair crop into a good crop pretty quickly. So if you wouldn’t mind, keep thinking about how awesome it would be if we got some good rain!

Cotton Condition - Selected States: Week Ending July 22, 2012
[National crop conditions for selected States are weighted based on 2011
planted acreage]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
      State     : Very poor :   Poor    :   Fair    :   Good    : Excellent 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
                :                          percent                          
                :                                                           
Alabama ........:    11          17          39          33           -     
Arizona ........:     1           3          20          44          32     
Arkansas .......:     3           7          28          42          20     
California .....:     -           -           5          35          60     
Georgia ........:     -           6          36          46          12     
Kansas .........:     3          13          52          27           5     
Louisiana ......:     -           2          31          54          13     
Mississippi ....:     2           4          28          42          24     
Missouri .......:    12          31          42          13           2     
North Carolina .:     -          10          27          56           7     
Oklahoma .......:     2          17          56          25           -     
South Carolina .:     1           3          35          55           6     
Tennessee ......:     3          12          36          45           4     
Texas ..........:     8          17          38          31           6     
Virginia .......:     -           -          25          66           9     
                :                                                           
15 States ......:     5          13          35          37          10     
                :                                                           
Previous week ..:     5          13          37          37           8     
Previous year ..:    23          18          30          25           4     
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

-  Represents zero.

Related posts

• Mid-July 2012 (minnesotafarm.wordpress.com)
• The Drought of 2012 – What’s the Impact to Livestock Farmers? (chrischinn.wordpress.com)
• A Look at the Arkansas Drought from the Cattle Pasture (agricultureproud.com)
• USDA, CNN Visit Our Farm to Inspect Drought 2012 Damage (thefarmerslife.wordpress.com)
• Drought 2012: Thirsty for Rain (fromheelstoboots.wordpress.com)

The post How is the US Cotton Crop Faring in the Drought? appeared first on Hundred Percent Cotton.