While sitting in the historic Abbay & Leatherman Commissary building and later driving through the beautiful flat land that characterizes the Mississippi Delta, Gary Bailey and I talked cotton. We went over all the physical details from planting the...
As the cotton crop rolls into mid-July, consultants are shifting into high gear across the Belt to nurture and protect the precious money bolls. This important segment of the industry is now in the height of its season. With...
After reading Alabama entomologist Ron Smith’s My Turn column, “Picking On The Terrace Row,” I began to think about my own memories associated with cotton insects, the devastation they can cause and some of the methods associated with their...
In my early years as an ag journalist, one of the biggest challenges was fine-tuning the timing for getting in touch with farmers and university personnel who spent their days from sun up to sun down in the field....
A popular pastime for fans at stadium sporting events is doing “the wave,” especially if their team is winning. It starts with a group of people jumping up, throwing their arms in the air, and then sitting back down....
As the 2017 season gets underway, I am delighted and impressed by the “wow factor” reverberating throughout the cotton industry. One of the most exciting prospects is the cotton acreage increase expected across the Belt. According to the National...
As a Louisiana woman who cherishes so many memories of cotton, it was startling to me to see the once-white landscape give way to other crops in 2007. It wasn’t that I had never seen soybeans before. My Dad...
The origin of the crystal ball is most often attributed to the Celtic Druids, an ancient group of educated people purported to be from Gaul, a region in Western Europe. It’s hard to distinguish truth from myth when it...
According to the ancient Roman calendar, which recognized only 10 months by name, March denoted the beginning of the year. One theory is that it was given this designation to coincide with the onset of the agricultural cycle. December,...
I was watching a college football game recently when a young player, who had not spent much scoring time in the end zone, made an amazing touchdown. He began celebrating in a fashion the official deemed “excessive” and was...
Samuel Blumenfeld, a prolific author on education in America, once wrote, “History is an exercise in remembering.” To me, history reminds us who we are, where we have been and shapes our lives going forward. With that in mind,...
Driving down the road at sunrise enjoying the taste and aroma of a hot cup of coffee is just the beginning of the sensory experience of farming that lasts throughout the day. A comfortable familiarity with the tasks at...
Cotton has always been a part of my life. I got “lost” in a cotton field as a toddler in south-central Louisiana while my parents were visiting friends. My mom rescued me although I wasn’t frightened. I was just...
There were images evoked of the cotton ball diet, and baking with candle wax and a dirty crop and Indian farmer suicides. There was a boldface statement that screamed, “Cotton is not food,” followed by an ominous whisper, “It’s...
Football season is still three months away, but the other night I ran across the movie Friday Night Lights and had to watch it…again. The high school football drama is set in Odessa, Texas, where “the game” is the...
