Monday, February 17, 2025

Industry News for September 2017

Enter By Sept. 30 For A Chance To Win $20,000 To Transform Your Community
Attention hometown heroes! Tell us how Transform WG insecticide has transformed your cotton fields and how $20,000 could improve your community. To enter the 2017 contest, go to www.transformmycommunity.com before the Sept 30 deadline arrives. The third annual Transform My Community Contest is sponsored by Dow AgroSciences and Cotton Farming magazine.

On the entry form, tell how Transform has helped protect your cotton yield from plant bugs and how your favorite organization or charity (local FFA chapter, food bank, library, etc.) is working to help transform your community. Your idea could win $20,000 for your community and a $1,000 cash prize for you.

In 2015, grand prizewinner A.J. Hood, who farms near Monticello, Ark., helped fund construction of a baseball field and playground designed especially for kids with disabilities. Last year, Dow AgroSciences donated $20,000 to the Carl Perkins Center for the Prevention of Child Abuse on behalf of Tennessee cotton consultant Larry Kimery. This money allowed the center to hire a full-time family advocate who works directly with children, who have been victims of child abuse, and their families.

Don’t delay! Enter online at www.transformmycommunity.com.

Remembering Bill Pearson — ‘One Of The Good Guys’
William Wallace “Bill” Pearson died peacefully at home in Davis, California, July 18, from complications following hip surgery. Bill grew up in Sumner, Mississippi, where his mother’s family lived.

Bill joined the Army Air Force in 1942 and trained as a fighter pilot, but the war ended before he saw combat duty. After the war he took over the management of his family’s cotton plantation near Webb, Mississippi. He married Erie Elizabeth Bobo in 1947, and their daughter and only child, Erie, was born in 1949.

Always searching for a better way to farm, Bill introduced the “skip-row” planting pattern to the Mississippi Delta, experimented with using geese to weed his crops and collaborated with seed developers to field-test new varieties.

In 2008, Bill and Betty moved to California to be closer to their daughter and her husband. At 95, he inspired all who knew him with his erudition, mental clarity, sense of humor and gentle warmth.

Dryland Cotton Farmers Defy The Odds In 2016
More than 100 cotton farmers qualified for the inaugural class of the FiberMax Maximizer Club. To join the club, the growers qualified half-ton and higher yields with FiberMax varieties on dryland acres in 2016.

The exclusive Maximizer Club was created for growers who take on the challenge of dryland cotton production. Yielding 1,000 pounds per acre on a dryland is an accomplishment worth celebrating.

“The three legs of the stool that support dryland production are science, art and environment. Bayer provides consistently high-performing FiberMax varieties, growers add knowledge and experienced management skill, and we all cross our fingers that Mother Nature cooperates,” says Jason Wistehuff, U.S. product manager for FiberMax cotton.

The highest yield for those who qualified for the club in 2016 — 1,553 pounds per acre — was recorded by Charlie Fisher of Sudan, Texas. Donald Houser Farms JV of Taft, Texas, came in with the highest loan value, garnering $0.0575. Kim and Kerry Garrison of Amarillo, Texas, qualified the most acres for the club, harvesting dryland yields averaging 1,000 lb/A or more on 589 acres.

Barry Street of Claytonville, Texas, won the sweepstakes drawing for a Polaris Ranger XP 1000 EPS. Street, who also owns Street Community Gin, can tell the difference between FiberMax and other varieties when the gin is running.

“By far, you can always pick out the FiberMax varieties. They’re easy to gin and just good quality,” he says.

Please visit www.FiberMax.com/Maximizer for more information.

Cotton Board Announces New Communication Hires
Two new regional communication managers have joined The Cotton Board. Christi Chadwell will serve as the Southwest RCM, with a territory including Central and South Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California. Shelley Heinrich will serve as the Southern Plains RCM, covering North Texas, Kansas and Oklahoma. The new regional managers will train under the current Southwest RCM, Bob Stanley, who is retiring in October.

The Cotton Board’s regional communication managers work to ensure stakeholders of the Cotton Research and Promotion Program in their respective territories are informed of the program’s activities. They also visit producers in the field, speak at industry meetings, participate in trade shows, and coordinate Cotton Incorporated’s producer tours.
Christi Chadwell served as the communications and recruiting coordinator for the Plant and Soil Science Department at Texas Tech University. She currently resides in Lubbock, Texas.

Shelley Heinrich, from Slaton, Texas, served as the development director for the National Sorghum Producers. She serves on the board for the Bayer Museum of Agriculture in Lubbock and on the Lubbock County Ag Committee.

The Cotton Board’s other regional communication managers are Monty Bain, covering Alabama, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia; and Brent Murphree, covering Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri and Tennessee.

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