mississippi

A sharper focus on the economic impact of the lower Delta backwater flood of 2019 helps predict the implications of continued flooding this year. Mississippi State University Extension Service researchers compiled data on the overlooked costs of the backwater flood that affected the Yazoo Mississippi Delta in 2019. They surveyed residents in the five affected counties in an attempt to ... Read More »

• By Jeff Gore, Angus Catchot, Don Cook and Whitney Crow• The 2019 season was one of the most challenging years we have had from a bollworm standpoint in both cotton and soybeans. The issue was not from a numbers standpoint where the numbers overwhelmed the traits and foliar insecticides. It was more an issue of population dynamics and how ... Read More »

The Mississippi State University Extension Service has a new cotton specialist. Brian Pieralisi was appointed to that role April 1. He replaced Darrin Dodds, who took the helm of the university’s Department of Plant and Soil Sciences. Pieralisi will work with growers to continue to refine cotton production practicesto help them become more profitable. His activities will include cotton variety ... Read More »

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 »

This work traces the struggles of five generations of Olivers from the late 1800s to the present in the Mississippi Delta. In the 1870s, James Samuel Oliver arrived in the Mississippi Delta by swimming across the Mississippi River—with a fresh bullet wound in his leg. He later journeyed deep into the swampy wilderness known as the Mississippi Delta.  Oliver cleared ... 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 »

U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, R-MS, has asked President Donald Trump to approve use of temporary pumps in the Yazoo Backwater Area to begin removing floodwaters that have contaminated the region for months on end. In a letter sent June 13 to the president, Hyde-Smith summarized the statutes, presidential disaster declaration and emergency funding available to support the installation of temporary ... Read More »