Weather always plays a role in the spring planting decisions of Mississippi row-crop producers, but the market impact of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is another variable they will have to consider in 2020. The U.S. Department of Agriculture Prospective Plantings report released March 31 estimates that growers intend to plant 4.06 million total acres of row crops in Mississippi this ... Read More »
• By Whitney Crow, Angus Catchot, Jeff Gore and Don Cook • Not much has changed since last year in regards to thrips control via insecticide seed treatment. Thrips are considered the No. 1 pest of seedling cotton. Tobacco thrips are the species encountered more than 90% of the time in Mississippi. The probability of having a thrips infestation in ... Read More »
Pathologists with Mississippi State University will be monitoring a relatively new plant disease in state cotton fields once the growing season is in full swing. Cotton leafroll dwarf virus, or CLRDV, was first reported in Alabama in 2017. It is closely related to a cotton virus known to occur in South America. Historically, that virus has caused up to 80% ... Read More »
“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 “girls” chose that vocation. As a member of a fourth-generation farming family who raised cotton, corn, soybeans and wheat near Jackson, ... Read More »
Nearly 500 people have already pre-registered for the 2019 Row Crop Short Course. The program, complete with CCA credits, can be downloaded by clicking here. The 2019 Row Crop Short Course will be held at the Cotton Mill Conference Center in Starkville, Mississippi, from Dec. 2-4. Registration is free of charge until Wednesday, Nov. 27. After Nov. 27, including at ... Read More »
Parts of Mississippi’s landscape are turning white, but unlike some northern areas, this coloration is caused by cotton bolls opening for harvest, not snow accumulation. The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimated that nearly a quarter of Mississippi’s cotton crop had been harvested by Sept. 29. To date, 45% of the crop is rated in good condition and 39% fair. Cotton ... Read More »
• By Tom Allen, Tessie Wilkerson, Nina Aboughanem, Jeff Gore, Don Cook, Angus Catchot, Whitney Crow, Darrin Dodds and Sead Sabanadzovic • During 2017, a plant disease of cotton caused by a virus, cotton leafroll dwarf virus or for the sake of brevity — CLRDV, was observed and identified in several cotton fields not far from the Gulf of Mexico ... Read More »
Cotton Farming One Grower Publications