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Monitoring soil moisture and scheduling irrigation doesn’t have to be complicated to be effective, as one Texas High Plains grower finds. By Vicky Boyd Managing Editor When it comes to soil moisture monitoring, David Carter of Levelland, Texas, likes to keep...

Editor’s Note: The Southern Southeastern Annual Meeting will be held Jan. 18-22, 2017, at The Westin in Charlotte, N.C. This organization represents cotton growers and ginners throughout Alabama, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia. Every year, more...

Tennessee cotton consultant wins the $20,000 Transform My Community grand prize for the Gibson County Carl Perkins Center. By Carroll Smith Editor “A hundred years from now, nobody will remember who I was, what I did or how much money I...

Considering the present value of projected net cash flows relative to an initial investment is a useful capital budgeting application By Kelly Lange Texas Tech University Agricultural production often requires significant investment in assets, such as tractors, irrigation systems and land....

A sold-out audience of the most influential executives in the global cotton fiber and textile business, representing 26 countries, attended the ninth Sourcing USA Summit last month in California. Who conducts the Summit? Cotton Council International (CCI) hosts the biennial Summit...

Commentary By Blake Hurst Missouri Farm Bureau When the elections are over and the U.S. Congress returns to work, it’s time for regulatory reform. Why should that be a top priority of the new Congress? Well, let’s talk about Charlie and John. Charlie...

This year marks the 10th anniversary of Cotton Incorporated’s Blue Jeans Go Green denim recycling program, an initiative that diverts denim garments from landfills and upcycles them. Manufacturing partner Bonded Logic Inc. in Chandler, Ariz., turns them into UltraTouch...

The new Farmer of the Year was selected by three judges who visited his farm and the farms of other state winners during early August. The judges this year included Clark Garland, longtime University of Tennessee Extension agricultural economist from Maryville, Tenn.; farmer Thomas Porter Jr., of Concord, N.C., who was the overall winner in 2011; and Charles Snipes, retired Extension weed scientist from Greenville, Miss. Garland says Wildy impressed the judges with his innovative farm management and crop marketing practices. “David is an outstanding manager of land, labor, production inputs and capital,” he says. “His diversified farming operation features a wide assortment of high-yielding and profitable agronomic crops.” The judges were also impressed with how members of the Wildy family have been able to strengthen agriculture in the Southeast by sharing their farming resources with the research and education communities. “Wildy family members hold key positions in this farming business, and they are responsible for much of the farm’s overall success,” Garland says. “They are consistently achieving their short- and long-term strategic farming goals, and these goals involve the entire family.”

Delivered As Promised The menu of cotton varieties from which to choose in 2017 includes a host of high-yielding, good quality selections. To help you get started, seed companies from across the Cotton Belt provided information about their headliners on...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oA1HVW-O89E What sets apart varieties with XtendFlex® traits? Deltapine® NPE grower Kevin Gardner, of Mocksville, SC, says that his Bollgard II® XtendFlex® varieties enabled him to have to cleanest fields he’s had in years. Through the Deltapine New Product Evaluator (NPE) Program,...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTeXyPi-7jY How do programs like Roundup Ready PLUS® Crop Management Solutions benefit your farm? Deltapine® NPE grower Glen Lyon, of Morton, Texas, explains why combating weed resistance in his area is a top priority. Through the Deltapine New Product Evaluator (NPE) Program,...

New Mississippi Facility Exceeds Wildest Dreams By Carroll Smith Editor Tucked away in Noxubee County, Miss., about 1½ miles down Deerbrook Road, Bogue Chitto Gin Inc. is an impressive testimony to area producers’ faith in cotton. The 25 stockholders settled on the...

By Steve Adler California Farm Bureau Federation Now that Gov. Jerry Brown has signed the agricultural overtime bill, Assembly Bill 1066, employment specialists are working to interpret its provisions and help farmers and ranchers prepare for them. The new law will...

Cotton producers in West Texas got a sneak peak at up to a dozen potential new varietal releases during Deltapine's annual field day at Blaine Nichols Farm near Seminole. Nichols and his father, Mark, are two of about 200 producers nationwide that participate in Deltapine's NPE, or New Product Evaluators, program. For the past 10 years or so, the Nichols have planted advanced experimental lines in large 3- to 5-acre plots. They farm the plots as they would their commercial acreage, with each plot being harvested, graded and milled separately. Come December or January when the data on the experimental varieties has been disseminated, NPE producers participate in a conference call to vote on the varieties they think should be released. Between the experimental and commercial varieties, the Nichols have about 20 Deltapine large-scale plots on their farm this season. Mark says they continue to participate because of the benefits the NPE trials provide the industry. Blaine says he's anxious to see how the new XtendFlex system will work once the low-volatility formulation of dicamba is registered. The varieties have been engineered to contain genes that impart resistance to both glyphosate and dicamba herbicides sprayed over the top. Although the Nichols have several XtendFlex varieties on their farm, the plants were only sprayed over the top with Roundup. Blaine stays on top of weeds using the Roundup Ready system as well as several different residual herbicides. He also has adopted a zero-tolerance approach to weeds, but he says controlling Palmer amaranth and Russian thistle as well as a host of others is a constant challenge.

After rallying to the upper 70 cents per pound range during the month of July, new crop cotton futures prices appear to be working their way back down. For much of 2016, new crop cotton futures prices seemed to be stuck in an upper 50 cents to low 60 cents per pound trading range. All of the fundamental supply and demand news pointed to larger acreage and larger production in 2016. With no significant signs of improved domestic or export demand, the potential for a large 2016 crop weighed heavily on the market.However, as the summer progressed, the development of hot, dry conditions in Texas and parts of Georgia along with dry conditions in India began to foster concerns of lower cotton supplies. This introduced a considerable amount of risk premium in the markets and helped support prices. Speculative interests took this momentum and continued to push prices higher by going from a net short position (selling more contracts then purchasing) in early 2016 to the highest net long position (purchasing more contracts then selling) in more than two years. However, this has brought prices to levels that are not fully supported by the underlying supply and demand fundamentals.