AgFax Cotton - Louisiana
By AgFax Media LLC, AgFax.com
OVERVIEW
Irregular cotton stands will be a headache for many growers and crop advisors until that last defoliation spray goes out. It's not that every stand is out of whack, but more fields than usual have wide and odd combinations of small and large cotton plants. In certain cases, two- or three-leaf cotton is on the same row as plants with pinhead squares. This same situation, by the way, has taken shape in parts of the Southeast.
Thrips are still active in places and treatments continue where necessary.
Aphids have required attention in some areas.
Plant bug sprays have ramped up over the last week.
LOUISIANA CROP REPORTS
Gary Wolfe, La-Ark Agricultural Consulting, Ida, Louisiana:
"With all the rain delays, weeds grew up in a lot of cotton and we weren't able to get a spray rig in it until this last week. Where necessary, we added an insecticide.
"Plenty of our fields go from sand on the high end to clay on the low end, which leads to a lot of variability in plant growth. That can influence insects, too. In some fields, we have thrips on one end and plant bugs on the other. Nothing is out of control but the crop is already late, so we're trying to take some pressure off and keep anything else from delaying plant development. We still have cotton in the ground, too.
"As things look today (6/17), I don't expect any June blooms this year. With a late crop and the weather like it is, things are probably setting up for a heavy plant bug year, too. Alfalfa is full of them right now. They could get tough on the tail end of the season."
Sebe Brown, Louisiana Extension Field Crops Entomologist:
"A big portion of our cotton now ranges from 10 nodes to first bloom. We're starting to pick up a lot more plant bugs, and they're definitely migrating out of corn and alternate hosts. More treatments went out last week and into this week. This plant bug migration is happening sooner than usual and it's in progress pretty much across the state.
"Aphids are out there, too. A lot of areas missed rain with this last system, plus it's been hot and dry. That, in turn, pushed aphid activity and some treatments have been made. If the hot, dry weather continues, spider mites won't be far behind.
"The forecast does include better chances for rain over the weekend. Let's hope that works out. Otherwise, we'll have sun and heat for the next 10 to 12 days, which would certainly favor mites.
"In soybeans, more treatments have started for redbanded stink bugs, especially in south Louisiana. Numbers continue to increase in north Louisiana but not to the point you would spray. A lot of brown and green stink bugs are in the mix, as well.
"Corn earworm (CEW) moths are just starting to come out of corn, so things are setting up for that flight in the last week of June and first week of July. Compared to soybeans, our cotton is running somewhat behind its normal pace. So, soybeans may be more vulnerable to CEW than cotton when that so-called Fourth of July egg lay starts."
Keith Collins, Extension Agent, Richland, Ouachita and Franklin Parishes, Rayville, Louisiana:
"From 25% to 30% of our cotton is squaring and the rest should be to that point in a week or so. We had some acres planted with questionable soil moisture prior to chances for significant rain that did not materialize. So, we have some spotty stands. It's raining again today (6/17) and we're hoping that brings up the rest of it.
"Overall, this is a later cotton crop than normal. Much of it wasn't planted until the last 2 weeks of May and into early June. The biggest risk with this later cotton will be running out of heat units and then going into fall during hurricane season. We don't always catch the brunt of hurricanes here but they still can deliver rain when late cotton is maturing. Warm October weather will certainly be needed to fill out those upper bolls.
"On the positive side, most of this cotton came up to a good stand and has been growing well. We just need a good general rain to maintain the momentum.
"We haven't done anything yet for plant bugs and nothing I've personally looked at is squaring, although I do know that a small acreage of earlier-planted cotton in the area is squaring. To my knowledge, no one in my parishes has made any plant bug applications.
"Growers have irrigated a lot of young soybeans and a big part of the crop was planted late, just like the cotton. A portion of the beans were planted in late April and into the first week of May. In places, though, beans planted in April took a hit from that dry spell. Growth slowed and they started flowering as soon as the fourth trifoliate, which is as early as I've ever seen that.
"Where they could irrigate beans, a number of growers started earlier than normal and certain fields have already been watered twice. Farmers are pushing hard to put nodes on those plants."