Features

• By Darrell VandeVen • When we started picking cotton in the fall of 2019, my brother, Donnie, and I finally faced the reality that the crop just wasn’t working for us anymore. Our cost of production was too high, and the price we usually received was too low for the numbers to pencil out. We seriously considered quitting it ... Read More »

• By Jeannette E. Warnert • Consumers who purchase luxury cotton textiles want more than cool, soft, absorbent fabric. Increasingly, they demand clothing made from fiber grown using ecologically sound practices and they’re willing to pay for it, said speakers representing the textile industry at a University of California Cooperative Extension webinar on Healthy Soils for Healthy Profits. At the ... Read More »

Across the Cotton Belt, crop rotation is a widely adopted production practice that has the potential to increase producer yields without increasing input costs. Over the years, Cotton Incorporated has funded numerous research projects showing that crop rotation decisions can have myriad benefits beyond yield improvement. These include reduced disease pressure, fewer weeds, less insect damage and improved soil health. ... Read More »

So far, 2020 is the year that keeps on giving. We can’t seem to catch a break, and most folks are ready to get this year behind us. Despite all the challenges we’ve faced, we have a substantial top crop — albeit late maturing — that has developed since early August. We were all hoping for fall weather similar to ... Read More »

Mississippi Commissioner of Agriculture and Commerce Andy Gipson announced the implementation of the department’s new Wild Hog Control Program supported by the Mississippi Farm Bureau Federation. “We are excited to launch the first-of-its-kind state agriculture department-led invasive feral hog trapping initiative,” Gipson says. “After a full year of public education, research and outreach through the commissioner’s Wild Hog Challenge, MDAC ... Read More »

• By Ana Otto • The monarch butterfly population has declined considerably over the past several decades. Reasons for the decline are attributed to reduced breeding habitat, extreme weather and other factors related to overwintering habitat, pesticides and deforestation in Mexico. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is currently in the process of evaluating whether to list the monarch as ... Read More »

This season’s cotton crop results are right around the corner, but growers are already eying their strategy for the 2021 growing season. Some of them already have a preliminary attack plan in their head, if not yet entirely on an Excel spreadsheet. “Mother Nature dealt us a fairly significant setback early this season,” says Lyle Carraway, a Lynchburg, South Carolina, ... Read More »