Recently I was astounded by the amount of agnerdness that took over my Twitter & Goggle Plus streams as friends with the Auburn University Extension Service started sharing photos of a cotton agronomist using Google Glass to scout a cotton crop. Yes, it was Google Glass on the farm! 

Here’s one of the photos that John Fulton (Google+ and @fultop) shared of agronomist Greg Pate. 

And Jim Langcuster (Google+ and @extensionguy) also snapped photos…. I especially like this one of Greg looking at the various fruiting positions on a cotton plant! I wonder if he could use those to record a series of photos and videos like the one on my what does a cotton plant look like post?

Jim wrote a great article on the Google Glass cotton farm demo saying “farmers place a high premium on mobility — namely, the ability to communicate and to upload and download digital information on their mobile devices while their hands are free to conduct all manner of essential business on the farm, whether it’s crop scouting, repairing an irrigation system or calibrating a sprayer.”

The post Google Glass On The Farm? Extreme AgNerds Scout Cotton appeared first on Hundred Percent Cotton.

I have to do it. Sure, there were lots of suggestions for C words that are important parts of agriculture and in fact, Kim Parsell gave me a whole list!

KentFarms _LA lobbied for cattle (Angus cattle to be clear) and several people echoed that cows would be a perfect choice and others suggested corn. To do an agricultural A to Z without highlighting my favorite fiber — cotton — as the letter of the day, well, it is unthinkable. And I tried. Seriously. There was a great suggestion from Angel Steffan who left a comment pointing to “C is for Cultivation. Not only the land before be plant, but we need to cultivate young minds interest in Agriculture.” That’s a compelling plea.

But I have to say, I started blogging in large part because when I got on Twitter, I settled on the name @JPlovesCOTTON because it was personal (some dear high school friends called me JP) and it connected me to agriculture through the crop I know best (cotton). Cotton is a passion for me as well as a crop — it comes with a great community of cotton farmers, ginners, merchants, warehousemen, textile manufacturers and more.

But remember, less than 2% of Americans farm and when you look at cotton, it comes down to .006% of us are engaged in cotton farming (thanks to Shawn the magnificent at the National Cotton Council for doing that math!) If someone who has a daily awareness of cotton doesn’t make a point of saying COTTON ROCKS, who should I expect to do that? And you can’t forget all the people who buy cotton products whether or not they produce the crop! I’m wearing jeans and a cotton/silk blend sweater today so I am squarely in the happy consumer camp!

Right now, cotton farmers are looking at the weather forecasts and trying to decide when soils will be warm enough for planting. Cotton seeds do better in warm weather — if it is too cool or too wet, disease can be a problem and that leaves the plant susceptible to a variety of problems throughout the season, but farmers want to plant as early as possible as they look to harvest before winter weather or hurricane seasons hit.

Cotton is a big part of this blog — in fact I have a Cotton 101 page devoted to some of the basics of my favorite crop that highlights posts including:

Cotton is not only a great crop, but it makes incredible fabrics! Textile mills have figured out how to make so many different types of fabric out of the fiber. I really love sweatshirts and jeans! Cotton flannel makes the best PJs and sheets for sleeping in winter!

D is for….

Tomorrow (Thurssday) is the day for the letter “D” so what do you think the word of the day should be?

See the other posts in this series by clicking on the logo at right and reviewing the letters, or by browsing the A to Z ag tag archives. You should also feel free to add ideas for upcoming letters!

The post C is for Cotton — an A to Z Series about Agriculture 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.

I love that my friend Stacy Hadrick (@StacyHadrick on Twitter, she blogs at Our Little Place on the Prairie) was willing to join the “Fabric of Our Lives” series of guest posts!  Stacy is a fifth generation American farmer, mom of 3 amazing kids, and a woman who is happiest when her plate is full. She’s relatively new to blogging where she’s sharing her life on the prairie in rural South Dakota with family and friends. She points out that “When you live an hour from a Wal-Mart it takes a lot of creativity and planning to keep ahead of my group.” LOL! I can only imagine how much time & effort it takes to stay ahead of a household that includes Troy and three kids!

When I have small moments of time to myself (which is so rare!), one of my favorite things to do is to spend time in a fabric store, touching and looking at all the beautiful colors, bolt after bolt of cotton fabric.  It’s in my blood, since I was a little girl I have logged many an hour in fabric stores with my mom, grandma and Aunt Penny. I love looking at pattern books, picking out fabric and feeling the excitement of getting home to start my project.  I remember vividly my mom talking to me about cotton fabric she said: ‘although it wrinkles easy, it’s also easy to sew with, easy to care for and breathes really well’. My first 4-H sewing project was a pair of cotton shorts. Funny, I can remember the shorts but have no idea what ribbon I received.

I’m proud to say that my kids are continuing my love for sewing and cotton fabric.  What is even better in our small community we have an amazing quilt shop.  My youngest daughter, Miss R begs me once a week to take her there. In fact about 6 months ago she got an idea that every morning I could take her to the quilt shop.  She planned on hanging out in the morning before preschool and have Lori (the store owner) then take her to school for her afternoon session.  Miss R was sure I wouldn’t say no. It made me laugh, she likes being at the fabric store so much she came up with this incredible idea. Her plan didn’t work out, but we continue to make regular stops and get our fabric fix.

Miss R and the pillowcase she made

Each of my children have sewed their first cotton item. My oldest son, T has  made many pairs of shorts- camouflage is his favorite color. Miss O has sewed a blanket for her baby cousin.  Miss R has made 3 pillow cases now, for her young age of 4 she loves to sew and is very capable of controlling the sewing machine. With all of my children I have shared the wisdom of my mom about sewing with cotton.

Teigen and the cotton shorts he made for this year's 4-H project

I can’t wait to see all the things we will create through our future sewing projects.  I’m sure we will make amazing memories with yards and yards of colorful cotton fabric.

My chairs that I recovered in different cotton fabrics since I couldn't pick just one. 6 chairs all different fabric.

This post grabs me…. one because my mom and grandmom have always been able to make anything. Really. And somehow me and fabrics connected early but the ability to use a sewing machine without breaking a needle eluded me. My thriving at the coloring outside the lines didn’t mesh too well with working from precise patterns either so I’ve had to freelance some of the things I do and convince someone else to help. Now I’m thinking my indecision over fabric to cover my dining room chairs has an answer – not just one!

I’d love to have more people tell about some of their connections to cotton. If you are interested, here’s how you can guest post here. And don’t forget to check out Stacy’s blog  Our Little Place on the Prairie by starting out with her recipe for blogging. Finally, if you want to know about cotton beyond the fabric used in sewing, check out my Cotton 101 series of posts and you’ll get to see what it looks like on the farm and more!

Related articles

• How to Make Modern Pillowcase Dresses (farmerbloggers.com)
• Refashion: Using your scraps to make a chic top (refashionmama.wordpress.com)
• Summer tops (idealhousewife.wordpress.com)
• Missing for three weeks! (sewconvert.wordpress.com)

The post Cotton & Sewing are a Family Tradition for @StacyHadrick appeared first on Hundred Percent Cotton.

It been a couple of years since a college kid seemed to stumble into my social media world. Okay, other college kids stumble in, but this one — Kelly Rivard took up residency! I got to know Kelly through Twitter (@kmrivard) and before long she was appearing all around me! Facebook, Skype, the now nearly forgotten Google Buzz and blogging (you really should check out https://kellymrivard.com). Its been great watching her grow as a person, as a communicator and as a member of a dynamic social media community I love being part of.

When I put out the request for guest posts about cotton, Kelly let me know early she was trying to decide which direction she wanted to go with it. She had a few ideas she was mulling around and she wanted to settle in on just the right one. Well, she hit this one out of the park if you ask me! She’s found a way of showing who she is and how cotton is the fabric of her life in a way that nobody else could do. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!

I’m at a stage in my life where I am almost constantly on the go. I juggle different jobs and career-building gigs, a heavy class load, homework, and all the mental strain of wondering where life will take me. There’s of course the demands and desire for a fairly functional social life, too, and volunteer projects, and family obligations. College is exhausting. I think I figured out that at one point in time in my senior year, I was regularly putting in a 70-hour “work week” with jobs, homework, and class. Needless to say, sleep is rare.

I have these “happy places” that allow me to escape from the stresses of college life. They allow me to shut off the world and just “be.” One such place is the creek on my parents’ property. Another is the westward facing deck on my childhood home, where I can watch storms roll in and the sun sink down. My most consistent de-stressing location?

My bed.

I’m a college kid. Let’s be serious here: if I could get paid to nap, it would be my full-time job. If I could take all my classes from here, you betcha I would. As much as I love to get gussied up and impress the world, sometimes sweatpants and a flannel hand-sewn quilt from my grandma just sounds “right.”

I’m picky about my sheets. I like the “t-shirt sheets.” You know, the ones that are pre-softened and a little thicker than normal cotton sheets? It’s like wearing your favorite worn-in t-shirt from that concert you went to years ago, every time you crawl into bed. And my quilt here at school? It’s one of those hand-sawn grandma quilts. You know the type…you can use them forever and ever, even when there’s a split seam or two. They just seem to get warmer and more fluffy with age. I’ve got two of them here at school with me, one made of a lighter cotton and one made of the softest most cuddliest flannel on the face of the earth.

Yeah, you’re jealous.

(Sidenote: my sister is notorious for stealing other people’s grandma quilts. My grandma made about 20 of them in one year and give a quilt to everyone in our family for Christmas. Grandma quilts abound, and if you can’t find one it’s normally because my sister has stolen it.)

Cotton really is the fabric of my life. It’s my safe little warm cocoon of happiness here at school. My cotton grandma quilts are always here to offer a warm hug of comfort and support, even when my family is a hundred (or more) miles away. And, my relationship with cotton goes much further than this. I’m a jeans-and-t-shirt kinda gal, so in a way these cotton articles are a part of my identity. Some of my favorite keepsakes from my late father are the paisley cotton hankies that he always had poking out of one (or more) pockets. (He didn’t always remember if he had one or not, so he’d accrue them in different pockets over a working day as he happened across them.)

On that note, I should probably shake myself out of my “cocoon” and face the day. Sorry, cotton comfiness, until laying in bed is a high-paying professional sport, I need to find other ways to pay the bills!

You can read more stories of people sharing how cotton is the fabric of their life or read about how cotton is produced by checking out some of the other things on the blog.

The post Wanted: Job that Pays Well for Napping / Cocooning in Comfort appeared first on Hundred Percent Cotton.

As you may have seen, I am asking various people who love cotton to guest post for the blog. Today’s photos were meant to be a wordless Wednesday post  but I turned a bit more wordy. Ooops! The photos were sent by farmer Travis Fugitt (@TFugitt on Twitter) who knows this is my first planting season in a very long time where I don’t have cotton going in the ground within a few miles of my home. He has been nice enough to share the excitement of planting season through sending me photos via both Twitter and Facebook. There is always something happening on Travis’ Bakersfield, CA area farm as they grow quite a few crops. This year he’s growing corn, safflower, cotton, alfalfa, carrots, cabbage, onions, sweet corn, blackeyed peas, garbanzo beans, garlic, wheat, oats and milo. I hope you enjoy Travis’ photos and that my captions and text help explain what he’s sharing!

The 2012 cotton crop of Deltapine cotton is being planted today (April 6) in sunny CA!! This is the view Travis sees when he looks out the rear window of the tractor’s cab at the planter. 

Looking out the windshield, Travis is showing us he’s using a 6 row planter — you can see he’s already planted rows on either side of him. The planter makes a small cut into the soil places the seed & presses the soil together. 

Seeing the field from the driver’s seat was awesome…. also appreciate that Travis took time to share the fact he was planting the brand of seed I’ve worked with since 1996 — Deltapine! Here are photos of the bags he was planting.

Deltapine Cotton Seed – “Dedicated to cotton, committed to you. We bring innovation and proven high performance to every cotton seed you plant. Cotton is our heritage. Peace of mind is the result. No other brand is so deeply committed to farmers and the future of cotton.”

The end of the seed bag contains a lot of information for farmers to refer to. Among the information you can see is the variety he’s planting (this is an experimental variety that contains the proven traits of Bollgard 2 and Roundup Ready Flex traits to help manage insect & weed pests), the lot number, when & where it was produced & quality tested as well as the number of seed per pound & bag. 

He even took time to share what a pretty cotton harvest they had last season with this photo from December 2011.

December 2011 cotton harvest

Learn more about planting cotton from these Cotton 101 posts:

• Cotton 101: Planting Considerations
• Cotton 101: Things Farmers Think Through in Selecting Cotton Varieties
• Cotton 101: What does a cotton plant or field look like?

The post Planting Cotton in California appeared first on Hundred Percent Cotton.

I’m not sure what I thought a stereotypical dairy farmer was like when I got on social media, but I didn’t think I’d find a bunch of them tweeting. And I certainly didn’t expect to meet farmers who have secret agent cows blogging from their farms. Then I met Ryan Bright. Ryan is a 5th generation farmer with a slightly overactive imagination. He works alongside his father and uncle on a 100 cow dairy farm. He has one normal blog, Silo Skies, that talks about life on his dairy. His other blog, The Udder Side, is a sometimes humorous look at farm life from the point of view of secret agent spy cows. You can follow him on Twitter @Farmerbright.

I love cotton

One hundred percent

All the other fabrics

Never make a dent

(in my wallet)

As just a regular guy and a dairy farmer, I am a big fan of cotton. I buy it for both reasons. No, I don’t purchase cotton clothes for my cows, although they might have liked to wear pretty cotton sundresses over Easter. Cotton for me is both feed and clothing.

Our cows are fed a balanced ration of hay, silage, and grain. The grain contains cotton and I sometimes even see a bit of the white fibers. It makes a great source of energy and nutrition in their diet. I think it must be the secret ingredient to great tasting milk, at least that’s what Janice Person told me and I’m sure she’s not biased.

food rations for dairy cows include cottonseed

With three kids and a wife I am definitely a cotton supporter in the clothing department as well, but today I’m going to talk about me. My favorite item of cotton is a faded blue flannel shirt.

Dairy Farmer Ryan Bright in Old Blue

Old blue the shirt has been with me for a very long time, 1992 or so. This makes my shirt about 497 in clothing years. There were also brothers to this shirt, red and brown, but blue is the favorite and the other two have both passed on. He, he’s definitely a he, is almost always untucked and worn over a cotton t-shirt. I have owned him longer than I’ve owned a car or even started dating my wife. As far as that goes, he’s probably seen most of my old girlfriends, too, not that we want to talk about that.

While some folks turn to mac and cheese or chocolate for comfort, I turn to blue. He’s just comfortable and home-y. These days he’s washed on gentle (when I wash him) and worn only on special occasions like on a cool day when I have the opportunity to hang out at the house and watch tv (moments that grow fewer!).

Generally speaking there is a timeline for clothing in my house. New shirts and pants start out as going to church or town clothes. They graduate to hangin’ at the house clothes to going to the barn clothes to grease rags. Obviously stains and rips move the timeline forward and there is still an opportunity for some to take a detour to the goodwill boxes. My wife has threatened to move old blue past his unnatural state of being into barn clothes or worse, but so far I’ve kept him safe.

Is cotton the fabric of our lives? If it is what makes you comfortable and feel good then it is definitely the fabric of my life and especially so when I’m wearing old blue.

What’s your “old blue” comfy cotton story?

Related Reading

• The Udder Side — Secret Agent Cows taking the upper hand on Ryan Bright!
• Silo Skies — Ryan’s perspective on the dairy
• AgProud: Tennessee Dairy Farmer Ryan Bright (agricultureproud.com)

The post Old Blue Takes the Top Spot on the Dairy appeared first on Hundred Percent Cotton.

Earlier this week, I made a plea for guest posts…. I want to share the various stories about how cotton is the fabric of our lives. Those special moments and the day-to-day that include my favorite fiber. Good friend Val Wagner is the first to take me up on the offer! Val didn’t send her own bio, so she’s at my mercy.  Val is one of a kind and at the same time, so familiar. She doesn’t fit the stereotypes others set up, but it’s not because she tries not to, she is simply being her awesome self! She lives in Monango, ND (which I will be visiting this summer – do or die!)

I first met her at the 2010 AgChat Foundation Conference (the photo at left is from our laughter at the airport as we headed home) but we had talked quite a bit on Twitter so I felt a little like I knew her. By the time we caught up at another ag meeting, we were dear friends. She had started her blog Wag’n Tales, that tells the story of her family’s farm where they raise beef cattle, corn, soybeans, wheat, alfalfa hay and four boys. Val is a farm mom in the traditional sense in that you’ll see her post recipes and talk about the crazy schedule of keeping the household of four sons running. But she also writes about going ice fishing or hunting, spending time driving tractors or helping deliver calves. Thanks Val & I hope you enjoy the post!

Cotton. I’ve always known what it was, but never gave it much thought. I mean, I like it in my clothes, I love it in my bedding, it’s everywhere I look…but I didn’t think about it. Much like many of us, I would guess. 

But that all changed not so long ago. I met this lady who has a passion for all things cotton…and when you come face-to-face with that kind of excitement and energy, you can’t help but feel a little excited and energized yourself.

I started reading labels, and watching what I bought, and realizing (without ever knowing it) that I was heavily in the cotton court…or maybe I should say field?

My hubby’s new Carhartt spring work shirt is 100% cotton. 

My youngest son’s favorite blanket is 100% cotton.

My wrestling son’s wrestling shirt is 100% cotton.

Yes, cotton is woven through every nuance of our lives…and I realize now, just how important that is.

Cotton is truly the fabric of our life.

You can learn about how cotton is grown through the Cotton 101 series of posts or more about the natural fiber in a variety of cotton posts.

The post Paying More Attention to Cotton Clothing & Textile Labels appeared first on Hundred Percent Cotton.