SCGA Honors Tensas Parish Farmers
Hardwick Planting Co. in partnership with the LSU AgCenter received the Southern Cotton Ginners Association Ag Achievement Award at the annual meeting held March 1 at the Peabody Hotel in Memphis.
Tensas Parish farmer Jay Hardwick and sons, Marshall and Mead, were honored along with the AgCenter for the development and adoption of agriculture research promoting innovation, efficiency, quality, safety and conservation practices.
Marshall and Mead Hardwick accepted the award on behalf of their father, along with LSU AgCenter Associate Vice President Rogers Leonard. The Hardwick Planting Co. is located at Somerset Plantation in northern Tensas Parish and consists of 12,000 acres of certified farm land.
Jay Hardwick, who has partnered with the AgCenter for more than 30 years, operates a model farm and is an avid supporter of the Louisiana Master Farmer program.
Both Marshall and Mead have completed phase two of the Louisiana Master Farmer program and are working to complete the final stage.
PhytoGen Announces Full Portfolio Of W3FE Varieties
As cotton growers look toward spring planting, PhytoGen announces five new varieties with WideStrike 3 Insect Protection and the Enlist cotton trait.
PhytoGen is the only cottonseed company to offer varieties with the Enlist cotton trait, giving producers tolerance to three herbicide modes of action — 2,4-D choline, glyphosate and glufosinate. All PhytoGen varieties with the Enlist cotton trait include WideStrike 3 for improved bollworm control.
All PhytoGen W3FE varieties have excellent seedling vigor ratings and include PhytoGen breeding traits for bacterial blight resistance. Many new W3FE varieties are additionally tolerant to Verticillium wilt and resistant to root-knot nematodes.
PHY 230 W3FE and PHY 250 W3FE — These two new, early maturing PhytoGen brand varieties offer excellent, consistent yield and fiber quality. Selected for the Northern High Plains, these smooth leaf, shorter-stature varieties are best suited to areas with moderate to good water and medium to heavy soils. Both are storm-tolerant and carry the PhytoGen breeding trait for excellent Verticillium wilt tolerance.
The three new 400-series PhytoGen brand varieties are PHY 430 W3FE, PHY 440 W3FE and PHY 480 W3FE. They feature the W3FE trait platform and have the PhytoGen breeding trait for bacterial blight resistance.
As the U.S. leader in Pima and Acala cottonseed, PhytoGen premieres PHY 888 RF — a full-season and full-statured Pima variety with the PhytoGen breeding trait for improved tolerance to Fusarium Race 4. The company also will offer the popular PhytoGen brand Acala variety PHY 764 WRF and Pimas PHY 841 RF and PHY 881 RF.
For more information, visit PhytoGen.com.
New App Available To Help Apply XtendiMax Herbicide
Monsanto Co. has launched a free mobile app to help growers and applicators successfully apply XtendiMax Herbicide with VaporGrip Technology.
The RRXtend Spray App is a grower- and applicator-focused digital tool that provides location-specific weather forecasts, digital record keeping capabilities and educational resources related to the Roundup Ready Xtend Crop System.
Growers can download the free app from the Apple App Store and from Google Play.
The app includes three main features. The weather forecast tool helps growers and applicators plan their applications by predicting weather conditions and inversion risks for their fields. It provides field-level location-specific hourly forecasts of temperature, relative humidity, wind speed, and direction and inversion risk. The inversion-risk forecast shows the probability (in percent) of an inversion occurring at a specific location.
The weather forecasts leverage both publicly available weather data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and unique models by Climate Corp. weather scientists. Growers must confirm compliant conditions according to the label before spraying.
The record-keeping feature gives applicators an easy way to comply with mandatory dicamba record keeping requirements when applying XtendiMax. App users can save and export multiple field records and store them on a mobile device.
The educational resource section connects growers to key resources including training information, materials on approved tankmixes and nozzles and educational videos featuring insights on methods used in the forecast tool.
For more information, visit http://www.roundupreadyxtend.com.
Stoneville Legacy Club Fetes Top Delta Growers
Bayer recently honored 45 Delta cotton growers in Destin, Florida, by inducting them into the Stoneville Legacy Club.
To qualify for the Legacy Club, growers had to harvest a block of at least 20 acres planted purely to at least one Stoneville cotton variety. The eligible geography included Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee and the Bootheel of Missouri.
Of the recent Legacy Club inductees, three received special recognition.
John and Laura Bixler of Matthews, Missouri, were named “top dog” for the highest 2017 yield of 1,624 pounds of lint per acre with Stoneville 5020GLT and ST 4949GLT.
Rusty and Sheila Carter of Marianna, Arkansas, had the most acres with qualifying yield. They harvested an average of 1,100 pounds per acre on 1,200 acres planted to ST 4946GLB2 and ST 4949GLT.
And Justin and Tonya Linig of New Madrid, Missouri, were recognized for having the most varieties on qualifying acres. They averaged 1,452 pounds per acre with ST 5020GLT, ST 4949GLT and ST 4946GLB2.
Texan Paul Pilsner Named 2017 Cotton Consultant Of The Year
Paul Pilsner, an independent crop consultant from Wharton, Texas, was recently named the 2017 Cotton Consultant of the Year during an awards banquet at the Peabody Hotel in Memphis, Tennessee.
Pilsner is the 36th recipient of the award, sponsored by Syngenta and Cotton Farming magazine. To read more about Pilsner, go to www.cottonfarming.com and click on the Cotton Consultant of the Year icon.
“When Tony Driver, my Syngenta rep, gave me the news about the award, it was an honor to know the guys I’ve always considered icons of the industry had voted for me,” Pilsner says. “I am humbled to say the least.”