Ag Fax MidSouth Cotton

By Laykyn Rainbol and Owen Taylor

AgFax

Growers planted a good deal of cotton in the Midsouth since our last report. Rains continue to stall progress in places, but the region has missed the kind of widespread systems that shut down everyone.

Warmer temperatures and sunshine have helped coax more cotton out of the ground. Strong seed quality this year helped many growers avoid a potential train wreck, our contacts continue to note. Despite wet soils and frigid temperatures, plenty of cotton has come through okay. Replanting will be necessary in places, certainly, but several of our contacts expressed surprise at how little of that seems necessary where they work.

How much more cotton will finally be planted remains an unknown. In the upper Delta, some growers are at least switching to shorter-season varieties. Better growing conditions seem to be helping late-planted cotton emerge quickly, which may encourage more planting past normal cutoff dates.

CROP REPORTS

Harold Lambert, Independent Consultant, Ventress, Louisiana

“Our cotton ranges from cotyledon to two leaves. Initially, it was off to a good start, but then big rains and cool temperatures hammered us. A few acres of cotton on sharp sand are struggling, and that cotton even shows a little pythium. We’re closely watching it.

“Cotton on heavier soils has definitely had too much rain.

“We’re also dealing with field crickets. The high cricket pressure is hard to address, and we’re losing some stands. I think this is the first time I’ve really had to deal with an excessive number of crickets in cotton. The only treatment I have applied has been an acephate and bifenthrin tank mix. It’s hard to tell if it was effective because a big rain came after we put it out.

“Corn looks to have excellent potential. The youngest corn has ear shoots visible now, so it’s around growth stage V15. The earliest planted corn is in full pollen. Scouting in the corn for southern green stinkbugs is ongoing, but we are not finding very many. Also, we have not discovered any southern rust in the corn yet.

“Soybeans are anywhere from not planted yet to probably R2 growth stage on some of the really early varieties planted on sugarcane ground. They still have a lot of growing to do, and they’re still pretty small due to the cool temperatures and the rain.

“A lot of my fields are right at the 10-year average for rainfall up to this point. We had quite a span of good weather, but in the last 10 days the fields have been on the wet side. We’re not complaining because we know a lot of farmers north of us and into the Delta were pummeled with rain, and a big portion of their corn was never planted.”

 Hank Jones, RHJ Ag Services, Winnsboro, Louisiana

“We have about wrapped up planting the first round of cotton. We had to shut down for a few days last week because we ran out of moisture. A lot of those fields were rutted from last year. With all the disking, the soil dried out.

“Rains over the weekend (5/16-17) were very welcomed. I think we will be able to finish some planting soon, and the rest of the cotton is up and looks good. What got planted towards the end of April and into the first week of May busted out of the ground quickly but then threw on the brakes as soon as it turned cold.

“Where we planted cotton in the second week of May, rain followed and the soil crusted over. Then the weather cooled off and it took about 10 days before that started emerging. I’m a little worried about that part of the crop. It’s up, but 1.5 inches of rain fell on it. The soil already was wet, so getting it to a stand might be tricky.

“That said, I don’t see anything yet that we’ll have to replant. It’s 82 degrees today (5/18), which is good cotton weather, and I think we should see some progress soon.

“I’m finding a few adult thrips. I’m not seeing any immatures yet, but I know that during the week we’ll probably be calling for thrips treatments in places. Most of the pretreatments are probably gone by now due to the rain and the length of time that they’re supposed to last.

“We probably have 25% of the cotton acres left to plant, which equals about 3,000 acres for me this year. Growers can knock that out in probably three days, so it’s not a long, drawn out process like in the past. One client runs two 12-row high-speed planters that can plant cotton at nine miles per hour.

“With soybeans, we’re 80% planted, maybe a little more. This last rain put planting on hold in places. Beans look good overall, and we really don’t have too many issues. I don’t have any replants on soybeans so far this year, which is a rare treat for me. Everything seemed to come up, and I was proud about that.

“Some are in R1 right now, but certainly by the end of the week a fair number of my early April beans will start to pod.

“We’re planning our second round of herbicide applications after planting. Palmer pigweed populations really haven’t exploded on us except in a few places, but we’re seeing more breakthrough on grass. We’re going to start applying our dicamba.

“I have corn that started tasseling last week, and on a lot of acres our corn is in that stage where you can hear it grow.

“I had to spray 200 to 300 acres of corn for northern corn leaf blight this past week. It was one of those situations where we saw a little bit of it a week ago, then we went back five or six days later – and poof – it was at a level where we didn’t feel comfortable with it.

“I’m still finding a few fall armyworms on the non-Bt corn. It’s nothing I’m going to be spraying but they certainly are noteworthy. It’s been a while since I’ve seen this many fall armyworms this early in the corn.

“I think we have a better corn crop this year than last year. In the heavy clay, we have some corn that is actually green this year, which was not the case for 2019. I’m not going to say it’s the best corn crop I’ve ever seen in northeastern Louisiana, but it’s better than what we had last year.

“To my knowledge, we haven’t had any 90-degree days yet. And that may be typical, but April and most of May have been mild. I dare say that we’re ready for summer. If it was to turn 90 degrees right now, we wouldn’t gripe.”