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.

A week  ago, I was driving to Memphis for the weekend and the drama of a bright, rich sunset with the rain lured me off my path. I took the chance to get off the interstate, and snapped a few photos in a couple of different places before finding a cotton farm at the perfect point of light. I snapped loads of photos and video on both my iPhone and my DSLR. I had to share a few pics from my phone immediately… this one grabbed me.

While some of my friends agreed that was a beautiful sight to behold, they weren’t as familiar with some of the other thoughts running through my mind as I stood in the light rain snapping photos. Knowing water was pooling up but could drain off that Delta field, but also wondering what the weather would be like for the next several days.

I turned to my cotton expert friends to ask them whether there are good and bad rains. A quick message thread on Facebook made it possible for me to check in with a few growing regions. I’ll put some of the photos I took that evening (no filters or editing!) along side the comments my friends had.

My friend Marjory Walker said her husband Bob (some of you may remember him giving my niece a first look at a cotton farm in Tennessee). She told me:

Bob says a slow and gentle rain over night, about 3/4 to an inch is usually a good rain. But it varies. Three inches in 15 minutes, a hard pounding rain, is usually a bad one.

A few hours south, Shea Whitfield in the Delta weighed in, looking a bit later into the season too: 

I will agree with what Marjory said. Also will add that once the cotton starts putting on fruit (editor’s note:  fruit is blooms, squares and bolls — the parts of the plant that will produce cotton lint later) the cloudy conditions that come along with the rain can be very detrimental by causing the plant to shed fruit. Also if we have been dry for quite a while a rain can jump-start the plant vegetatively and cause it to shed. So to answer your question sometimes it’s good and sometimes it’s bad.

When Shea looked at the panoramic photo above, he added:

Makes me think you need to get the planter back out if it was just planted and it sandy ground. Hard packing rain makes it tough for a little cotton plant to come up.

He couldn’t make out that this field had a good stand of cotton already but the other pictures here make that clear. Even without seeing these pics, challenges for seedlings came to mind.

My friend Barry farms on the High Plains of Texas. He hasn’t been seeing the regular rains the Mid-South has had so he has a bit of a different perspective.

The rains we have had the last couple of weeks looks a lot like this, and the cool wet weather has caused some seedling disease and loss of some fields. On the other hand, without rain, NOTHING grows. After the drought we have been through in west Texas, all rain is welcome.

And further west, in Arizona, Kevin Rogers is used to having to irrigate cotton to get it growing. He said:

If the rain hits after its watered up we are ok as long as it doesn’t pond up. If we get a rain before we get germination and a crust forms on the soil and we can’t keep it wet we will have to replant. Agree with all the comments! We also don’t want a heavy rain when the plant is opening up as we get close to harvest.

There’s another post on the site about how damaging rain is on cotton at harvest.
In the days since, we’ve had more rain and cooler temperatures. That’s not exactly cotton weather. It loves a drink now and then but otherwise cotton plants prefer it hot and drier. I hope we get some perfect cotton growing weather soon!

The post How does a big rain impact a cotton farm early in the season? appeared first on Hundred Percent Cotton.