September 30th, 2015 Honorees Paved the Way for New Generation of Innovative Cotton Industry Leaders Memphis, TN- Cotton Incorporated announced today the 2015 class of the Cotton Research and Promotion Hall of Fame. The program, now in its second...

Cotton Incorporated has launched a new Web site to give the cotton growing community quick and easy access to important cotton information. Cotton Cultivated provides a portal that integrates Web sites, downloadable documents, social media and real-time news feeds...

If a cotton producer has questions about weed resistance, he will find the answers at the Beltwide Cotton Conferences (BWCC) on Jan. 5-7 in New Orleans. This will be one of the key topics of discussion at the Consultants Conference, as well as the Technical Conferences. Obviously, other issues of interest are on the schedule, but perhaps none is timelier than this expensive problem. Most observers agree that cotton producers have made remarkable progress in understanding this situation and implementing workable strategies. But, there is still much to learn as new technologies become available to cotton production. “The good news is that we’ve made great progress in controlling resistant pigweed in cotton,” says Tom Barber, Arkansas Extension weed specialist and chairman of the BWCC Weed Science Conference. “I think our farmers completely understand the importance of overlapping residual herbicide applications. What has us concerned is some PPO (protoporphyrinogen oxidase) resistance that we’ve discovered in seven counties in Arkansas. Fortunately, they’ve all been in soybean fields and not cotton.” Barber says the big concern is will Reflex herbicide still give farmers the necessary control if the PPO resistance problem moves into cotton fields.

A brief glance at the face of cotton production would indicate that there are a lot of older men growing the crop. But, a deeper look reveals that a new and diverse generation of cotton producers is helping to...

  Lee Hutchins Crop Management, Inc. Sinton, Texas I was raised in north Louisiana in south Bossier Parish and started checking cotton for my aunt and uncle when I was 14. I later graduated from LSU and served in the Army. After...

The National Cotton Council (NCC) is confident persistence will pay off when industry members pursue a zero tolerance goal regarding contamination of seed cotton and lint. Why is contamination such a threat? The NCC believes contamination prevention is so important that...

Considerable ink has been dedicated to China’s cotton consumption for the 2015/16 marketing year and beyond. As the world’s driver of the cotton economy, however, there must be constant analysis. It’s too important a market to neglect or make faulty assumptions on. For this article, I’ve taken a look at the present research from several industry publications, notable market pundits as well as in-house sources. I will fuse together all the information while musing over consumption for the coming year and going forward. To begin, it is essential to have a firm understanding of why we are here. Cotton’s current doldrums began in 2010 when Upland prices reached $2 per pound. The world, including at the time the largest cotton-growing country, China, planted row to row cotton. By the time harvest had rolled around, prices, while still historically high, had ultimately moved lower, prompting the Chinese government to embark on a massive buying program of domestic cotton. Between 2011 and 2013, the Chinese government bought more than 60 million-plus bales with average prices of $1.40 per pound (and higher) and placed it in state reserve warehouses all across the country. Most of the accumulation was domestic cotton, but some imports were repackaged and delivered to the reserves due to the inflated prices.

JORDAN LEA Eastern Trading Company, Greenville, S.C. The kickoff of the college football season means one thing to some but something else to those of us in the cotton industry. The new crop is on the way! The entire global...

When cotton producers across the Belt start harvesting this year’s crop, they’ll do so with several thoughts in mind. They will be thankful that they’ve reached the point where they can see the results of their hard work. And,...

OKLAHOMA Although late, the Oklahoma cotton crop has made good progress in the past several weeks. A significant amount of irrigated cotton was on time with respect to cutout during the last half of August. Even though the crop pretty...

Missouri’s Rone Family Strives For Efficiency By Tommy Horton Defoliating and harvesting a cotton crop is like painting a picture. Unless everything is mixed together perfectly, the finished product won’t be that good. Some have even suggested that the entire exercise...

I was born in England, a banker for awhile, finally achieving my boyhood dreams by getting my wings. Airplanes and unique opportunities took me many places before I ended up in cotton country – Lubbock, Texas. After an interesting...

Even though it’s more than three months away, it’s not too early to start talking about the Beltwide Cotton Conferences (BWCC), scheduled for Jan. 5-7 in New Orleans. If you’ll check out the October issue of Cotton Farming, you’ll find a preview that gives a quick look at some of the key issues that will be addressed. Even though the conference only lasts three days, it will deliver a lot of information for any farmer, consultant, Extension agent/specialist, university official or industry sales representative. Granted, the Beltwide differs from what we remember it to be in the 1980s, 1990s and on through 2013. But, the conference is still a valuable link to information for any person involved in the cotton industry. In fact, the Consultants Conference, which lasts for a day and a half, is one of the best overviews you’ll find. If the Consultants Conference were the only event you attended during these three days, you would have gained access to a comprehensive look at the most important issues confronting cotton production. The Consultants Conference, in fact, will kick off the Beltwide with a half day session on Jan. 5, beginning at noon. Then, it will conclude with an all-day session on Jan. 6. You name the topic, and you’ll find it when you join the consultants for this meeting.

Valley Introduces Airless Tire For More Efficient Irrigation Producers tired of getting flat tires on their center pivots now have a new option: The Valley Revolution airless tire. Flats usually happen at inconvenient times and places when the corn...

You can’t tell the story of American agriculture without looking at how farmers and ranchers have pioneered the use of cutting-edge tools on their land. Innovation and farming go hand in hand. And we’ve come a long way from the first gas-powered tractors a century ago to the state-of-the-art, self-steering models available today. Farmers and ranchers are quick to embrace the best tools to get their work done – and to get it done well. Thanks to advanced farm equipment, better seeds and smarter digital tools, we are growing more while reducing our environmental impact. Major Challenges By 2050, we’ll have nine billion mouths to feed. That’s no small task, and we can’t get the job done without important advances in technology. Farmers today can analyze weather data, manage nutrient application, map their crop yields and adjust planting for the next season with modern precision agriculture tools. Soon, we will be sending out drones to monitor fields with more speed and accuracy than generations before could have dreamed of. We’ll be able to zero in on fields and crops down to the individual plant. We will spot diseases and pests almost the moment they appear, and target our water, pesticide and fertilizer applications to use the right amount at just the right time.