I was raised in the small town of Wisner, Louisiana. My mother was a registered nurse, and my father was a barber. Agriculture surrounded us, but I was a city boy. I didn’t know the difference between a cocklebur...
I recall two farm visits during April 1978, my first month as an assistant county agent — cotton pest management in Lawrence County, Alabama. One involved a replant situation on a cold, wet Friday north of Town Creek. The...
“What do you want to be when you grow up?” When asked this question in my younger years, my response was never “a farmer.” Not because I didn’t want to be one, but back in the day, not many...
Four decades ago, Dr. Raymond Sheperd and I were standing in Field 10 in one of his cotton nurseries at the Auburn Plant Breeding Unit. I was a young experiment station superintendent, and I fussed about how short the...
I am blessed to be a fourth-generation farmer and a second-generation California farmer. My parents, Ted and Deborah Sheely, moved to California from Arizona to farm cotton in California’s Central Valley in the 1970s.
We are south of Fresno and...
I am a third-generation farmer in Dillon, South Carolina. The farm began as a dairy and tobacco operation and remained that way until the 1980s. My father, Roy Baxley, grew the farm and converted it to all row...
I grew up in Harmony, North Carolina, a small town in the Piedmont. Our farm primarily had beef cattle, beans, corn and small grain all grown on the typical red clay soils of the Piedmont.
My father and grandfather...
I am an only child and a third-generation Georgia farmer. As a little boy, I was fascinated with equipment and loved going to the farm with my dad, Kenneth.
There’s a lot of truth to the phrase “following in your...
Greetings from the University of Georgia Tifton Campus! We have been celebrating a momentous occasion at UGA Tifton, and I would like to share that event with you. A bill passed by the Georgia General Assembly in August 1918...
After many years of the Cotton Farming magazine staff asking me to write a “My Turn” article, I did so in May 2017. I received so many positive reactions from the readers I thought I would try again. This...
I was raised northeast of Lubbock, Texas, on a cotton, grain sorghum, wheat and cattle farm near the community of Farmer, which is just north of Lorenzo. Both of my grandfathers farmed, and I remember them and my dad...
I grew up in the little town of Ropesville, Texas, population 435, right in the middle of the “world’s largest contiguous cotton patch.”
My maternal grandfather, Jerry Green, was a gin manager. My paternal grandfather, Wilburn Chambers, was a...
Old No. 2 died last night. I found her this morning in the “boot” pasture way over by the tree line. I knew it was coming for some time now, but somehow that didn’t lessen the disappointment. She had...
I’m not sure why I fell in love with agriculture at a young age. I wasn’t pushed into agriculture, but I feel like I was pulled — much like the smell of a fresh pot of coffee has a...
My great grandfather, William Stiles, settled the family here in Lee County, Arkansas, and started acquiring land in the community where we live and work today. My grandfather, Earl Wayne Stiles, and my dad, Earl Ramey Stiles, worked some...
