Cotton Specialists Corner
Extension Cotton Specialists and others from across the U.S. weigh in on a variety of topics that impact cotton producers, consultants, and the industry as a whole.
Cotton Specialists Corner
Smarter Cotton Fertility Plans When Water And Prices Are Uncertain
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Cotton fertility decisions can feel like a gamble when you’re staring at dry soil, volatile input prices, and a cotton market that can change fast. We sit down with soil fertility experts from Texas, Virginia, and Oklahoma to sort out what actually helps you protect yield and profit going into the 2026 season and what simply adds cost before you even know you’ll keep a stand.
We dig into at-plant fertility strategies across very different regions, including why many growers still front-load phosphorus and potash, and why more programs are shifting nitrogen later. A big thread throughout our conversation is timing as a risk management tool: putting a smaller percentage out early, then making the main investment closer to matchhead square or first square once the crop proves it can survive. We also talk about deep soil sampling for residual nitrogen, how much money it can save, and why “realistic yield goals” matter more than ever when you’re trying to hit an economic optimum fertilizer rate.
Potassium gets special attention because it can be unpredictable even with a soil test in hand. We unpack why K deficiencies can still show up on “adequate” tests, how root restriction and soil profile depth complicate recommendations, and where banding in strip-till might improve efficiency. We also cover sidedress best practices, when urease inhibitors like NBPT are worth it, what foliar nutrition can and cannot do, and the hard truth about unproven products such as microbials, sugars, and humics across multi-state research.
If you farm cotton or advise cotton growers, this is a practical, decision-focused listen. Subscribe for more Cotton Specialist Corner conversations, share this with someone planning their 2026 fertility budget, and leave a review with the one fertility decision you want to get right this year.
Welcome And Why Fertility Matters
SPEAKER_05Well if it was a week they say the call you call me You promised me the moon and then I wish I wasn't both I think I think I do it Lo that came in without you and wait to win away from glory but it's still the only life I did I finally made some money it's the cotton picking cotton grooving blue Welcome to this episode of the Cotton Specialist Corner Podcast.
At-Plant P and K Strategies Across Regions
SPEAKER_02My name is Campan, extension agronomist based out of Tifton, Georgia. And today we're discussing the optimization of fertility inputs going into 2026. And I know that I said this in one of our earlier episodes where we discuss a lot of seeding rate and plant or prep and seed quality and uh some of those different considerations in that I kind of had uh some ideas for early episodes where we discuss optimizing inputs because the cotton price uh was had was so poor going into the 2026 season. Luckily, for now, that has turned around, which is good news for for everybody listening to this. But I do believe it's still important to discuss some of these things and optimizing these inputs and doing things that we're confident we're gonna get a return on investment with. So certainly want to talk about that as it pertains to fertilizer. And I know that planting is underway across most of the cotton belt, and in some areas they're probably getting close to done planting and approaching uh that side dress type window, and we'll talk about that a little bit. But there is still variability across the belt, and some folks do some different stuff with at plant fertility, so we'll discuss that too. But and planting's ramping up in a lot of different places. So, but I am not a soil fertility expert, but I have a few with me today to help me out with this. Uh, so very excited to have Dr. Katie Lewis with Texas AM AgriLife, Dr. Hunter Frame with Virginia Tech, and Dr. Brian Arnall with Oklahoma State. So glad you guys have joined us uh here on the podcast today. I believe everybody here has been on this podcast before. So no strangers to what we do here, but did want to get started uh talking about at plant fertility, optimizing a lot of that. You know, and I'm here in South Georgia, deep sand in most situations. And so we might do things a little bit different, but we typically are recommending our PK up front, and of course, based on a soil test, and we do uh base our recommendations on realistic yield goals, where some folks have gotten away with that, and that is fine. But we can just kind of bounce around and talk about a few different things. I'll start with Katie and we'll just kind of go from there in terms of uh things that you believe growers should know going into 2026, particularly with some of this at plant stuff or uh early season PK type applications.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, thanks. And and thanks, Camp, for having us on today. You know, I I'm located in Levock, Texas, but Texas is really big and very diverse from one end to the other. And so, like you mentioned, South Texas, they are done planting. They were quite a bit late planting because of the limited moisture they had. So, really, most of their fertility has gone out by this point. Um, and then you move through the Blackland, Central Texas, and they are a lot later than normal. They haven't put much cotton in the ground yet. Um, and just from some of the contacts that I have there, they are a little hesitant to move forward with putting any fertility out because of how dry it's been. Most of that area is dependent on rainfall. They don't have much irrigation. And so uh they're holding off just a little bit. And I would say that that carries through um into the high plains as well. And, you know, I I come at it from two perspectives, both as scientist and producer. And so it is a little nervous, it makes me a little nervous to not see them putting out the fertility, but I do understand why, because of the prices of uh input costs right now, and then the price of cotton. And so what I would suggest is those that do have irrigation and are able to get a little fertility out now, maybe put a very small percentage, maybe 20% out of what their their total recommendation is. And we in Texas also base that on a yield goal, but then to hold off and see what the stand looks like in a month or so.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah. So getting a stand, of course, is the key, right? And there's a lot of things that go into that in Texas, of course. Water, right? But then of course, you can you can lose it to different things, hail, whatever, right? Wind, sandblast, and stuff like that. Yeah. So um, certainly a lot of things to take into account there. And you know, that's why it makes it so complicated in a place like Texas, because you don't want to walk away from something and be so invested in it, right? Exactly. Now, do y'all recommend putting all the or P and K up front, or you said 20%? Are you talking about 20% of all of it, or are you talking about 20% of the other?
SPEAKER_04Well, so yeah, great question. So, South Texas, they actually do a lot up front versus very little in season, and usually that goes back to just the amount of rainfall that they traditionally get in season. There's going to be limited time or windows for them to get that side dress application. So they typically put all of their fertility out up front.
SPEAKER_06Okay.
SPEAKER_04Um, as you move further up the state, um, it's typically at 30% up front of in, and then the remainder in season, but most of the P and K macros, micros would go out up front.
SPEAKER_02Good deal. Now, Brian, since we're out west, and you got anything to kind of add to some of that?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, we're we're kind of the same boat, but our our largest irrigation district, which is really our cotton belt, works off of um uh surface water impoundment that's about empty right now. So they're they're looking at no water. And so it goes back to our our heavy irrigation district is looking at pulling back the rains on on inputs. Uh, we're the same way. Uh a lot of fall out of the kitty stuff, uh dry land irrigated, uh, limit our nitrogen up front. We do a full FOSS recommendation up front. I don't want to delay FOSS. Um, but our potassium, a lot of the guys were looking at it in this way is that they'll put their sufficiency-based amount up front and then look at uh on our either heavier ground or sandy ground, depending on what it is, if there's irrigation or rain, they'll then they'll come in with a side dress of 0060 over the top uh once they know what they're looking at, get a chance to look at roots. Comment that I would say that a lot of our dry land folks are looking at right now that irrigated is that you know, we we first started delaying the amount of nitrogen to make sure we had a good stand before we invested. But the latest work that we have actually shows that cotton performs better with limited nitrogen. If we can make that crop a little deficient early, we are changing, we don't have all the data, but we're changing where that fruiting load is at on the plant. And we're we're really increasing our yields by 10 to 15 percent across uh all up front. If I could limit my nitrogen to about pinhead square, um I'm increasing my yield and my quality significantly. And so even in in better price times, we got a lot of folks moving to in-season nitrogen just because an increased uh increased profitability.
SPEAKER_02Would y'all come in with your with a side dress nitrogen and OO60 at about the same time? Like a penny.
Holding Back Inputs Until A Stand
SPEAKER_00Well, we don't want that. We want we want both those demand points are fairly similar, uh, assuming that we get either irrigation overhead. The the place that we can't do is on the subsurface drip because we need some incorporation. Um, but yeah, we come in at about that same time. And uh for me, it allows us to get a chance to look at the the plants, the roots, and even get some deep soil. We got more folks this year pulling deep soil samples to try to get an idea of what's out there uh because we do have a fair amount of nitrogen sitting at that that six to eighteen inch level, which a good cotton crop's gonna get to it. So even our our high, you know, high-yielding five belt cotton ground. Um, I've got guys pulling back, and they're probably not gonna put more than 60 or 80 units on because that's all they're gonna need to get to the five belt level.
SPEAKER_02So is a deep core like is that a standard practice for y'all, or that that's not?
SPEAKER_00No. Okay. I as a soil fertility specialist, I'd love it to be. I think I've been preaching that for a decade. But yeah, you know, when when right now going price on nitrogen is between 94 and a buck three in Oklahoma, a pound, um, there's a lot more interest in pulling at least a composite to depth. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And I know our economists here in Texas, they've done quite a bit of work to see what that residual nitrogen that you might account for with a deep core. And it can be as much as like$20 an acre or something that you can save if you take those deep cores, in some cases, even more.
SPEAKER_00But yeah. Yeah, I just did a six to twelve for a guy and he's pulling back 70 units of nitrogen.
SPEAKER_04Oh man.
SPEAKER_00Well, that's that's that's a that's a good sixty-five to seventy-five dollar price tag breaker on on a quarter.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, no kidding. It must be really nice to have soils that hold something.
SPEAKER_00It's not about the soil holding camp. It's about not having rain to watch. Yeah, that's true. That's true.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, we well, we got a normally we have a double whammy where we've got soils that don't hold anything and we get a bunch of rain in the wintertime. This year we just didn't get the rain in the wintertime. So maybe, maybe we got a little something going for us going into 2026. So, Hunter, you're in like a different world over here with me, man. So, so what are some things that you uh really think are important for those? And it sounds like you got a lot of guys who are sitting on go uh waiting for a rain to plant. And so, what are some of the things that you're encouraging them to think about with respect to early season type fertility?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so in in Virginia and probably most of North Carolina, uh our guys are in a split system. So about 30% of our nitrogen goes out at planting. Um, all of our phosphorus goes out at planting or just prior to planting, depending on whether they're set up to run uh two by two starter systems or are in a pre-plant broadcast system. And I would say 65 to 75 percent of our potash goes out at planting up here. Uh, we do have some guys running uh 0060 ammonium sulfate split at about four to five leaf to prevent that potash leaching and to get a little nitrogen and sulfur out. Um and then the remaining of our nitrogen goes out at uh I would say match head square, first square stage. So I've always speculated what Brian seems to be working on is that cotton likes to be nitrogen deficient early on, and then you can throw a slug slug of nitrogen to it at about first square. It's worked well for us. We don't see a lot of benefit from further splitting nitrogen. I guess my one plug would be with the price of nitrogen in our area for corn and cotton, is if you're surface applying urea, protect that urea with a urease inhibitor, something that has NBPT, which is an active ingredient in most enhanced efficiency fertilizers for urea. We see a lot of volatilization. We can lose up to 50-60% of our nitrogen. Katie, I think you're in the same boat on some of our lab trials we've run on some Texas soils in the lab. For us, it's knowing when you need to protect that nitrogen once you put it out. Right now, we're we're used to be a humid environment. Right now, we're probably more semi-arid than in the humid, but um so volatility is not a huge concern right now, but that's our primary fertility system in in Virginia.
Delaying Nitrogen To Boost Yield
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so a lot of people ask me whenever we were kind of going into 2026, and I'm still getting a few phone calls because in Georgia we'll plant up until you know June, early part of June, middle of June. And uh they ask where to cut up front, right? And it it seems like that's always the question. It doesn't matter if it's seeding rates or diseases or nematodes or whatever, it's always about before I get started, where can I cut? And you know, I started doing some some reading and and digging into some of our recommendations on you know, phosphorus and uh potash in particular uh at planting. And it was interesting to me to learn how whenever you have something in like the medium range in phosphorus or potash, if it's low, you have an 80% chance of seeing a positive yield response from applying that fertilizer. Where it's in the medium range, you have a 50-50 shot, and where it's high or very high, you have a 20% or less chance of seeing a positive yield response from those type products. And so, you know, whenever I see some stuff like that, I'm kind of curious. I know I have my opinions, right? Because I would never tell a grower to cut potash, and that's Campan's opinion. I don't know uh if that's the same for you guys, and y'all are the experts, but five and Brian, you said something interesting a second ago. You said you would never tell a grower to cut phosphorus, but sometimes that's what I tell people to cut if we're gonna cut anything, but we do apply a little bit more chicken litter and some things like that, and maybe there's some more residual type out there. So I'm kind of curious if you were to you know get into a conversation with somebody about cutting up front in some of the major things that we're applying, what what are some of the things that y'all would consider looking at? And and Brian, I'll start with you since I kind of called you out a second ago.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and so uh I say on on the foss side, because because we're working a lot of areas, our cotton's not grown where there's litter or anything along those lines. We're typically a pretty calcareous soil, so we're going to be dropping really high pH. And it doesn't take a lot of foss to get us where we need to. Our our native soils are pretty high, but if we're low, we we really need that out there for root establishment. We want to get that root jumping and rolling. Cutting, what I would say for the guys I've been talking to is that understanding the difference between sufficiency and replacement.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So I don't ever want us to see us going under a sufficiency, which is what those old correlation calibration stuff that was done in the the 60s and 70s, that if I have a soil tested X, I need Y amount of P and K to hit optimum production, not keeping the balance. Right. The replacement and build is about keeping the soils at a specific point. So I don't want to see us dropping below those old sufficiency racks, but we can play with the amount of replacement we want to get into and where we're at. K is one of those things where, so I if I'm at phosphorus efficiency, that that's enough for me on the cotton side. I don't need replacement on that. Potassium is one of those that I think it's our I I walk hand in hand. It's one of our most under for under applied nutrients in my region. I'd say Katie probably might see some of the same where we get a greater need for it. Uh, so if they the folks have been applying potassium heavily, then they could really look at pulling back on that replacement portion. Um, and I for my guys that are better managers, I'm having them look at the root system because we do have a lot of things that might limit root exploration. And that's when we get our biggest bump from uh potassium shot in season, whether it's a clay, whether it's a plantar compaction, whether it's uh one of those things. And so we're we're making that call on how much to top it off, kind of just based upon how the crop root structure is going and if exploring the soil well.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, for sure. So, Hunter, well, what about that type question? Like if you were telling somebody what to cut up front, if you got that question right, what direction would you go with that?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so from a fertility camp, I'm probably uh leaning more towards you. Our sandy soils tend to typically test higher in phosphorus, soil test phosphorus. So if there's a place where we have a little wiggle room, um, and we've tested some soils that are low phosphorus and haven't seen that much of a response in cotton. So but I always remind them if you cut this year, you're gonna have to replace eventually and get into that replenishment. Hopefully prices come down. But where we were at going into the 52 65 cent cotton with the input prices the way they are, they had to make the yields. And if you didn't make the yields, then it didn't matter. And so for us, because our systems are so nitrogen, sulfur, and potash limited that if they cut too much, they were going to see it on their bottom line. So where I really looked at is some of our seeding rate research where we've shown we can drop down to seeding rates at two seed per row foot and not hurt yield. Now you have to get a population, but in cotton, I would say they could cut back on seeding rate this year before they cut back on the fertility program.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, for sure. What about you, Katie? I imagine you're in a similar boat to Brian. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I would definitely echo what Brian and Hunter both said. Um, but I'm gonna shake things up a little bit.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you are. Come on.
Deep Soil Sampling And Residual Nitrogen
SPEAKER_04And I'm gonna I'm gonna dig into the nitrogen component a little bit. I really think that just based on the research that we've done over the last five years or so, that our 50 pounds per bale is a little high, at least for our more semi-arid regions. And so, based on what their realistic yield goal is, I would suggest that they cut that back down to maybe 35 to 40 pounds per bale um yield goal. And so, you know, yes, I do think that we can probably, depending on the soil, what phosphorus and potassium look like, we could potentially cut back there. But I think a major savings on input cost up front would be nitrogen.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And then, like we talked about earlier, knowing what's in your soil could also be a potential savings.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, for sure. And you know, that's something that before we even got into it and asking questions about fertility and stuff like that, man, the best investment you can make, it doesn't matter if it's a deep core or whatever, man. You just gotta know. You gotta know what's out there, right? Yeah. And I, you know, Dr. Glenn Harris, he used to be here at Georgia. He used to say that people would ask him if they needed to pull a soil test. And he said, Man, that's like asking your barber if you need a haircut. Like, come on, man. You know, that you gotta get a soil test, you gotta know what's out there. So um, you know, certainly something important when making these kind of decisions. Katie, I did like how you stress the word realistic yield goal. Because that's something that, you know, in Georgia, we talk about it a lot in terms of being realistic, but man, there are just some farms that just aren't gonna do it, you know, and it don't matter how much fertilizer you put out there. We're spreading chicken litter today on one that is just terrible ground. And we're trying to build it, right? And that's why we're spreading litter and everything. But I mean, it just takes a ton to make a crop out there, and you can't you can't just pour the coals to it and think that that's gonna make everything better, right? Because it's only capable of so much from what I've seen. So um kind of going into how some of these recommendations are, Katie, you already mentioned that you recommend nitrogen uh by yield goal, and um, how are some of these other uh nutrients accounted for in some of those recommendations that y'all give?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, so a lot of our Texas recommendations go back several decades. Um and so I think, you know, as a state, we could definitely do a better job of reevaluating those, giving some more up to date, modern recommendations. They are still going to be based on a yield goal, accounting for um the residual. And I have honestly gotten to the point. I think, you know, all of us on this call have studied potassium for quite a bit of time. And that's one of those that's still just somewhat unpredictable. We will get soul tests that indicate that we have adequate K, but then we either see a deficiency in season or we see a response to added K when soul test didn't indicate that. And, you know, I don't know that that is one of those nutrients that I rely on heavily, and I'm probably going to get scolded as a soul scientist, but I don't, I just I have a hard time when you see contradictory results to what the soul test is saying to really rely heavily on that, at least for potassium. Now, when it comes to nitrogen, phosphorus, just about any of the other nutrients, I feel very confident that our soul tests are doing a good job of predicting or estimating what is actually there.
SPEAKER_02So I am curious. So I said I would never recommend somebody go out and not put potash out. And that's because I'm with you. I if it says it's high or or moderate or whatever, and this farm that we're spreading litter on is a good example where we can get to a moderate level, but it does not matter, we're still gonna see deficiency, you know.
SPEAKER_04At least on higher yielding ground, I typically make a K recommendation as well.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Regardless of what now, I mean, if we're in one of those holes that may have five to six hundred part per million K in the top six inch, that's definitely one we can skip for that year. But um, when we start getting down into the two to three hundreds, that's where we typically see the response to an application. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00So Camp, I'll I'll go sideway because we've been we don't do it in cotton because it's a lot of on-farm studies, and on-farm studies with cotton are not the easiest thing in the world to get yield data on. It's complicated. So we we've tutored it with soybean, trying to understand because for us, soybean and cotton respond the same way to potassium. It's a you don't know. Um, and it's a 50-fish shot. And I think Bobby Golden uh down Mississippi State, when he was doing stuff, had a pretty good saying that you know, if if if foster says it's low, then I got a pretty good probability of getting response. If it says it's high, I got a pro pretty good probability of not. With potassium, you just don't know.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um, and so we've tried to look at it differently, more of a 3D view. And and I would say Katie made a point is that I don't necessarily think that the soil test is wrong as far as what's available. I think we're just looking at such a thin view of six inches that we're not seeing the entire picture. It's like, yeah, six inches that's available. What's at 10 inches? What's what's that root having access to? So I think the soil test doesn't take in the crop's ability to access the potassium, whether it's a restrictive layer, whether it's root growth, whether it's nematodes, there's so many uh biotic things that are happening. Uh, because a lot of times we'll go out and there and find out that, yeah, the soil test is high. We've got a K flash, but we've got some kind of restrictive layer of plantar compaction. Something's happening that prevents the crop from getting to it. So we have all these other things cleaning into the soil test um that that makes it tough. And then just K is so mineral dependent or clay mineralogy dependent, that's that's why it's not fun.
SPEAKER_04And that that goes to the exact point I was trying to make. You said it perfectly, Ryan, that I do feel like it is an overestimation, but an overestimation because there are so many other things that are limiting the uptake that we aren't necessarily accounting for, able to account for with the soil test.
Where To Cut Without Breaking Yield
SPEAKER_02Yeah, potash is certainly complicated. And like I said, I I mean, I'm never gonna recommend somebody not do it. And and Katie, I don't want to make you feel old or nothing, but that study, that study that you led, that belt wide study, how long ago was that? That was 10 years ago, wasn't it?
SPEAKER_04Getting close.
SPEAKER_02I was a student worker with Dennis Delaney when that whenever y'all did that. And Dale Monks had took another took an administration job, and I was working for Dr. Delaney and put out some of those treatments. So nice.
SPEAKER_04Oh, yeah. Hunter was on that one too, so you can make him feel old as well.
SPEAKER_02That's right. Yeah, yeah. You're you were first, you were first author. That's why that's why I called you out. But but yeah, Hunter, I mean, we're in the same boat here in on the eastern seaboard, right? I mean, potash, and you already mentioned nitrogen and sulfur and potash, but you do some neat stuff looking at contributions to of cover crops to these systems. And you and I have had conversations about different clovers and the way that they uh mine potash. Now, I I tried to plant some of that clover, but interestingly, you have to have something for that clover to mine for it to actually benefit you. And uh I didn't, so it didn't do very well for me. And and two, the ground is so poor that clover, it doesn't matter if it's crimson or uh what was the other one?
SPEAKER_01You got a couple different ones. You got bersene, balanza, yeah.
SPEAKER_02It didn't matter if it was crimson or balanza clover or whatever, if I planted that stuff on this given farm, it it comes up potash deficient, which is crazy to me to see a cover that is just starving for nutrients. So uh tell us a little bit about uh some of those things and kind of how they play into your recommendations with some of that.
SPEAKER_01I'll just say that if we get soil test potash that's over a hundred pounds per acre, we're uh we're ecstatic in Virginia. Yeah. Um, but going back to your question, I've kind of hedge my bets about not not applying potash. I'm probably 10 to 15 percent over what Virginia Tech recommends in our area because I've seen guys and and gals cut and um they they hurt themselves on the back end, especially if we have a phenomenal year in terms of rainfall and yield potential.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um, but going back to the cover crops, you mentioned cover crops and spot you know, clovers are good at it. Uh Balanza clover is really good at it if you can get a stand and if that's a unique clover. But uh all the legumes, what's been interesting to me in the past seven or eight years, we've worked with uh legume covers here is the amount of potash they mine from our soils being unfertilized. So if we don't fertilize the cover crops once we get them established, we can see in the above-ground biomass is what we're measuring. We can see anywhere from 200 to 300 pounds of K2O in the above-ground biomass, which should be pretty available or mostly available the following year once that cover crop's terminated. That's been interesting to me because that's coming from somewhere. Yeah, it has to be coming from our subsoils that have more clay and more ability to hold potash. Uh, so we've kind of shifted our focus from green manure, nitrogen green manures to a system whole approach with these covers. Uh, the problem is, and we're getting bit by it right now, is you get into an area like Katie and Brian where rainfall could be limiting, and then you go in and try to plant when you haven't had a substantial rainfall in two months, and getting stands of corn, cotton, or anything is problematic.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um, soil is much drier where the cover crop has been taking that that uh water up. So you have the nutrients there in the cover crop. It's getting them to release and to break down into the the cash crop that you're looking at. But yeah, we've shown in Virginia now, going on probably six or seven years, we can grow three to four bale cotton behind legume covers and not put not put a single bit of fertilizer. So no nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, or sulfur on that crop and still make three to four bale cotton yields on farm. This is not small plot stuff. This is on farm strips.
SPEAKER_02So yeah, that's awesome, man. So, you know, it's it's funny you brought up the levels that we'll see. I keep coming back to this one farm that we have that's just awful. The potash levels whenever we first started out there were 13. Terrible. I mean, awful. It was it was before it even started squaring, it was potash deficient. And I was like, man of life, this is just unreal. So now I'm married to that farm and it's more of a challenge, right? I I take it as a challenge to try to build that place, but um, certainly a really good spot for fertility work.
SPEAKER_01So, you know, we can't one thing we've been looking at, and we built a rig to do this, is to ban granular uh pie dash in the strip till we strip till most of ours, right? So we're running a band probably three to four inches below the seed, and so we're putting as much as 200 pounds of K2O uh using uh like a granular subsurface knife. Yeah. So we're looking at that as well to try to pick up that efficiency of uptake.
SPEAKER_02So but you don't so a lot of times I feel like whenever people talk about banding, they start playing with cutting rates, right? And so are you are you cut or adjusting your rate per broadcast acre whenever you band it, or are you putting out the same amount, but it's just where the plant needs it?
SPEAKER_01So we're putting out the same amount. So we're doing like we're doing rate trials right now of this versus a traditional broadcast system to see if there is any efficiency of uptake and you know yield to see if we can cut rates. So, like if a 80-pound K2O banded rate's the same as a 130-pound broadcast rate, something in that area. Right. We start as the technology has become available, like uh, what are these montag units that guys are strip tilling and able to put put the nutrients in the strip till row? We're just kind of looking at that on a on a lower budget scale, but trying to trying to get some ideas on how to do that. I mean, we looked at liquid pie dash very early on in my career, but that's so expensive that uh it's not feasible. Yeah. But if you could do 0060 or 062 in a band and use the same rate and increase your efficiency, be pretty interesting.
SPEAKER_02Would you blend like a DAP or a map type product to go in there too, or would you make a separate trip and do that broadcast?
SPEAKER_01I mean, so now they have the capability, they can run two products in these systems, and so you're actually three, you actually blend them on the fly and variable rate, whatever you need on the fly, uh, and put them all in that in that uh strip till band.
SPEAKER_02Oh, that's pretty cool. That's pretty cool.
Potassium Is Predictably Unpredictable
SPEAKER_00I mean, Katie's a Katie's in the country, the queen of strip till country. I mean, I bet the majority of all of her cotton acres are strip till we see guys you'll do we do easily two products like a 40 rock and a mes along with the potash, both running 200 plus pounds of product easily. And then you could do a third product, like a um uh maybe a micronutrient. And then a lot of those guys are running with anhydrous, so you're running anhydrous with the dry product and getting it all done in the strip till.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Second that, except for the anhydras, maybe in the the northern panhandle, but you know, it's funny you brought up the covers.
SPEAKER_02I mean, we've been really dry around here too, Hunter, and I'm a big fan of covers. And I and I really appreciate like Katie's work on it in particular, because it's just it is a real world thing, right? I mean, I know that there's all these programs and stuff like that, and that's all good and great, and you know, save the world with cover crops and stuff. But I mean, at the end of the day, in some situations, it's not feasible. And this year, I told a lot of people in March that we needed to be killing cover around here just because we we had not been catching rain. And I was telling folks, I was like, I'm fixing to start treating this like we're in Texas. We the anything that's green needs to die, you know. Certainly something that I've seen over here, Hunter. So we've talked a lot about some of the at plant type past. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04So I think this year in Texas is the first year that I've seen cover crops dying even without a herbicide application because it has been so dry. We were able to get them established in then February, March. And then there are some guys that are having quite a bit of trouble getting them to die to actually terminate them with a herbicide application because they are just so thirsty.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah. And I started getting calls a couple of weeks ago about difficulty terminating just because you know that cuticle gets so thick and then uptake and all that good stuff. So certainly a complicated thing. Like, like I said, I'm a big fan. We plant a lot of cereal rye around here or wheat or oats or whatever. Um, I plant cereal rye on just about everything we do on the experiment station just because I like to have it. I like to hold the land in place because we're real uh subject to erosion. And I hate to see, you know, you spend a lot of money on fertilizer, you get a wash in rain, and it just washes all that stuff in the woods. I'm like I'm not a big fan of that.
SPEAKER_04So yeah, we we see ours fly away and leave in the air.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, right. The wind will pick y'all's up.
SPEAKER_04Oh, absolutely. And just one more point, too. You know, uh Hunter and I have done a lot of work together looking at um accounting for the nitrogen, potassium, whatever it might be that um is available from a cover crop after termination. And we do have to be careful, maybe it's more in our semi-arid environments, but immobilization following a cover crop. And so typically that's when we try to adjust our timing of application to compensate for the potential immobilization, especially following something like rye or wheat.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I've never done a lot of looking at cover crops and and like the impacts on cotton. I know that there's a lot of work done on the cover crops themselves, what they can bring to the system, what they, you know, like Hunter, like you're talking about, man, they they bring all this stuff to the surface and you know, it gives it back, it can give it back to the crop, right? But this past year, and I'm kind of curious if you guys have seen this. This past year, I have a graduate student where and we're working together with um our sustainability specialist here, Dr. Taylor Singleton. And we're looking at like some of these NRCS type cover crop mixtures that might be, you know, six, seven species or whatever. And uh we didn't see any difference in uptake, nitrogen uptake whenever we took whole plant samples at the end of the year, regardless of if it had a legume or not. And it certainly didn't contribute to yield, you know, if that was the case, right? So just because it makes the or can mine, you know, potash or phosphorus or whatever, or produces nitrogen, right? That may not necessarily mean that it's getting to the cotton. And so I'm I'm curious. I say all that just to give y'all a little bit of background. I'm curious if y'all have seen that in your environments and and kind of what y'all think. And Hunter, I know you said that you can make three to four bales without putting out any fertilizer, right? So I mean it's it seems to be working, working there. But what about uh Katie and Brian? What about y'all?
SPEAKER_04So we could actually see a reduction in yield following a cover crop. And you know, that might go back to the water limitations early. Um most of the soil moisture, soil water data that we have would not indicate, at least in an irrigated system, that it's a water limitation. But we do have uh research to support that it is potentially a nitrogen availability limitation. So following a four to five thousand pound per acre cover crop, um, you might see some immobilization occurring um and limiting the nitrogen that's available for that cotton crop.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I'd just say I'd echo that. And when I'd say in Oklahoma, we don't even do uh soybean credit because that's not predictable enough. I don't care if you have a 20 or 100 bushel soybean, I can't predict what's going to be available in the next crop just due to mineralization rate and pattern, and it goes right back to a cover crop. If I can't predict a hundred bushel soybean crop is a potential credit, and I mean it goes from zero to 80, depending on what year I'm falling those beans on a hundred bushel beans. And so if I can't do that on what I know is a hundred percent legume with with rhizobia inoculated well versus one of those blends that are more than likely, I we don't have very uniform. If we do a blended cover crop, we're not very uniform. So yeah, maybe if I'm straight cowpea uh and I green manure it, and then that's one thing. But the just the the being able to predict that's been really hard. We can't predict the weather, so it's hard to predict.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, for sure. So certainly something interesting that I I saw last year, and like I said, I'm a big fan of cover around here, but certainly some interesting stuff. So we've talked a lot about some of the early season stuff, you know, NPK, right? Um, there's some parts of the belt right now that particularly South Texas, right? They're probably getting ready to go back over the top with some stuff. So, how about some best management practices for for side dress applications? And I know uh that we've talked a little bit about urease inhibitors, if that's the source that you that is available for you to use. And and so uh we'll kind of let's start with Hunter and then go back uh to the West. So best management practices uh as we get into side dress applications.
Cover Crops Mining Nutrients And Risks
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so in Virginia, we recommend a kind of a flat rate, which we'll probably get away from that. It's 120 pounds total. So our guys are putting out anywhere from 75 to 90, depending on what they put out at planting at match it square to first square. That's could be urea ammonium sulfate blends, or it could be UAN and ammonium sulfate solutions or anthiosolutions. I prefer, and our data backs up, that we see a little bit more better efficiency with fluid, with fluid in sources in cotton, and I think it has a lot to do with some preferential nitrate uptake. I think cotton likes nitrate, so having that UAN out there uh initially helps with some uptake, but one application's all you need. We we've tried multiple applications in season, like two to three. We haven't seen a benefit of that. And then I'll go into like the potash management. Our data is showing that a single pre-plant, maybe an early post, like a four to five leaf stage of potash, is beneficial, but we have seen no benefit of putting potash on during during the bloom period. And um we can't get enough potash in foliar feeding. I get a lot of questions about foliar feeding potassium. I think I did a calculation assuming 100% efficiency, and they were have to go out there like every other day with potassium nitrate, which is probably our best foliar material in terms of pounds of K2O to the acre, uh, because you're getting 4.4 pounds, I think, per 10 pounds of potassium nitrate. Right. And so we can run a 20 20 pounds and 20-gallon mix and get 8.8 pounds, but that still doesn't give us enough but for a few days of potash nutrition during balloon. So pre-plant soil applied program for potash, splitting your nitrogen out at match it square to first square, your remainder nitrogen has worked best for us.
SPEAKER_02You you recommend sulfur with your nitrogen side dress, or y'all do that at planting?
SPEAKER_01All of all of our side dress and applications are getting some sulfur out with them. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Really interesting on some of the potash stuff, man, because there's a lot of people around here that'll put like a hundred pound of K mag or something with their with their side dress nitrogen. And uh, you know, good to know that if it's too late that it's not going to do any good. So, what about out west? And so uh Brian or Katie.
SPEAKER_00So we we're seeing more uh uh culter rigs running in cotton ground, which I like to see. So we're seeing more and more that allows for liquid or dry culture rig. So, you know, anytime you get that nitrogen below the ground, that that for us is a benefit over losses. Um, dry versus liquid, we've got some no till that's heavy residue. And so in heavy residue, if we're dry as far as the environment, the red tends to play better than liquid. Liquid tends to get trapped on that residue, and no amount of MBPT holds it, and so our losses are greater. Uh, and even on bare. Soil it a bare soil, it's an easier mix. It's urea or uan because you get that contact. Uh, if the soil has any moisture, that MBPT, that urease inhibitor is always beneficial. But we're this time of year, we got a lot of dry, dry ground. And I mean, when you don't even have evapotranspiration coming up, there's not an added value for MBPT. So we're playing it by environment. It really is what's what's my residue situation, what's my soil moisture humidity. If we're looking at early July in Oklahoma, West Oklahoma, and what and Texas, there's not a lot of humidity. Uh, and so we're just hoping to get it rained in, or we're going to water it in one of the two. And so it it depends on that as far as MBPT. Our cotton stuff, we do have, and unlike hunt or other, we do have shown if we delay. Now, this isn't putting on extra K. This is if we delay K in a deep sandy soil where we have overhead irrigation, we're getting um uh increased efficiency by putting putting it on uh match head square in that area. So we do get a little bit of bump and we're putting that in our nitrogen in those environments. So it's N and K of that matchhead pinhead square going in. But it's a it's not adding to what's already out there. It is a complete movement of application date into that frame. We got a little bit of folks running boron, but we usually have uh we don't get a good boron response out a lot of our sites. In fact, I think added boron's not necessarily that good, but we got a lot of folks looking at boron. The new thing is silicon, they're looking at silicon and and calcium and all these things. And I think Heiner, you kind of say it better. It's like you can't spray enough of this stuff on if it's foliar to meet the uptake demands out of three days. And so we've just not seen a whole lot of love. And if you've got iron and zinc concerns and are higher pHs, that needs to be a seed treat and not something in season. We we know at least most of the work with iron shows, that seed treat plant is a lot better option than trying to repair it in season.
SPEAKER_02What are you putting in seed for those type or in fur for those type situations?
SPEAKER_00Oh, it's um it's kind of funny. Uh they all tend to work. You just need to know what product you're running. So I say the cheap products take about twice as much as the expensive products, which cost twice as much. So just know what formulation we're running. Um mostly and in mostly accelated forms tend to work better because we're looking at really high pHs. But the the stuff that I've seen, if I got that cheap stuff, I need two quarts and it's going to cost me 25 bucks, or if I'm paying 25 bucks a quart, it's going to take a quart of like a soy grow or something along those lines.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, six in one hand, half a dozen in the other, right? I know we talked about this, but you you said a total movement of potash application. So you still you're still putting some up front and then you're putting the rest later, or you're moving 100% of it to that.
SPEAKER_00We've we've played around with that. And so we don't have a lot of guys doing it, but our work has shown we've got a couple of the more progressive farmers doing it where they've just migrated about everything into that 20 or 30 days. They're spending all their time making sure the planting's right. They're not refilling those rigs, they're not going out ahead of time, they're slowing down on planting, getting everything in the ground, and then taking their time. Basically, once the planters stop rolling, then they're coming back in, and that's their side dress applications. And they start rolling once the planters shut down. And it it works out the guys that are doing it and the gals are doing it. It's it's a window, a timing window that allows them to assess a few things, and that window works fairly well for them.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Katie, what about you in Texas?
SPEAKER_04So we've actually done some of that work that Brian's talking about. And what we were finding is that it's not necessarily a slip split application that provides some benefit, but it's a single application, either pre-plant or you could go back in at Pinhead Square sometime around then. Um definitely don't push it a whole lot later because then I think you'll miss that window. Um, I don't know, these guys, they they sum things up pretty well. I think there's a lot that goes back to Texas um as a whole, you know, making sure that you're really paying attention to the environmental conditions before you make any of those decisions. And like I said earlier, you know, it's not just Texas, it's really across the cotton belt right now, but things just look somewhat bleak. And I hate to be that person, but it's hard to um make that call on fertility when you're not even sure you're gonna get a crop established. And so my recommendation and some of the meetings that I've been to, the farmers that I visited with, is really to try to focus on the economic optimum rate. So again, going back to that realistic yield goal, what can I economically afford to put out in my uh cotton crop for this growing season if we make an average or below average crop? But still holding back on that initial application and putting the majority of your nitrogen and maybe even holding back on some of your other macros and micros just to see and make sure that you can get a crop established.
Sidedress Timing And Source Decisions
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And that was gonna be one question that I asked was you know, if you'd move this pot ash window to pinhead square, how often are you in the clear at Pinhead Square? That's the other, that's the other thing to me is that it's like I, you know, you would love to say, oh, well, yeah, you're safe up to first bloom, right? But it but even then you just don't ever know what's gonna happen. But no, yeah, if you get to Pinhead Square, I mean, you got a lot of time and and energy and effort in that crop already, right?
SPEAKER_04Yeah. And I mean, even this last year and several times in the last 10 years, we've seen an early freeze. And so you can end up getting all your bowls open, at least in the high plains of Texas. And so that's you know, there's no way to predict those sort of things. Like Brian said, if we could predict the weather, then we could definitely make better fertilizer decisions.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think if we could accurately predict the weather, none of us would be here doing this. We'd probably be doing some other stuff. Um, so Hunter, Hunter brought up a little bit of foliar. Um, I I am curious what you guys think, Brian and Katie. I do uh a little bit of foliar on the experiment station just because some of our recommendations are you know, you put all your potash up front, and if you're coming up short, you know, frame up uh some some foliar K applications. And generally we'll do it with like a stink bug spray hunter is third and fifth week of bloom, which I mean, if you're gonna do it, that might be the that's peak demand, right? So uh you're probably timing it about right there. If nothing else, it makes me feel better and it helps me sleep at night, you know. So the curious about uh recommendations on foliar, whether it's potash or or any other uh nutrient. And uh Brian, you brought up boron. I mean, it seems like around here that's that's a standard thing that people do first bloom, third week of bloom, people are gonna put out their boron. So, so any uh thoughts on foliar applications of of any kind?
SPEAKER_00I'll say uh I like a hunter. So we we've actually applied foliar potassium, try to chase it through the plant, and by the time it hits the petiole, it's so diluted you can't find it anymore. And so I won't drop a dime. If they give it to me for free, then I might do it. But I would never have a farmer pay for foliar potassium. I just can't find, and this has been in every crop. I've chased it in cotton, soy, corn, sorghum, sesame, canola, wheat, and peanuts. And and it just there's just no return on investment when it comes to that that K because it just dilutes out so rapidly. Yeah. And it ends up a lot of it doesn't even make it into the plant, it gets washed off. And so we find even with uh dew or any kind of water movement, you're not getting foliar uptake. So Hunter said it perfectly is like assume you get a hundred percent uptake. And uh he highlighted that one, and I want frame to know I heard that. It's like assuming that you only get about you don't get enough K in to even get it much past the petiole end of the stem, and then it's it's out in the wash because the plants pulling so much K from the soil uh into that system that it just doesn't quite roll. We we ran every source we can commercially make and make in a lab that time when we tried to chase it, and it was about all the same.
SPEAKER_02What about other do y'all do any other kind of foliar, Brian, or just not, it's just not gonna take it?
SPEAKER_00I see we a couple of micronutrients, but I want I really stress on my folks to be know what they got and have that plan. It's our high pHs, have those metal nutrients in and in furrow, get that done right then. And a lot of people look at foliar as a recovery. Oh, I've screwed up, so I want to recover. We've done foliar phosphorus work at Oak State and multiple crops, and that uptake is really poor and kind of the same situation. You don't need near as much, but the ability to get phosphorus across and into the plant foliarly is is so much more challenging. It doesn't play out. Um, sulfur's not enough. Like I said, we'll we'll play around with some micronutrients, but I'd I would rather be thoughtful and get it in ahead of time. Yeah, for sure. Katie.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and I I agree with Brian. The only time that we have seen some responses to potassium foliar applications has been coupled with a soil-based program. So still, you're gonna get the majority in the plant through the roots versus through the leaves. The one area that we have seen um more consistent responses is with zinc applications. Um, there was some work done before I started in Lebek where they saw the similar, similar type trend with a response to zinc foliar applications. We did a couple of uh years worth of research looking at zinc applications, and we saw a response there as well. But we also saw a response with a soul-based application. So coming in and side dressing that either pre-plant or in season about Pinhead Square. We saw a good response to Zeke. And that is one thing that I feel like we really need to be paying closer attention to, at least, you know, in my area of Texas, it's often overlooked as a micronutrient and it can have big rewards if we are supplying the plant with what it needs. A lot of the soil tests that I look at across the high plains can be in the deficient range. Um, and so we're missing a big piece of the puzzle by not paying attention to zinc.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, but it's a similar story down here with manganese, right? I mean, we it's it's a pH issue, right? But a lot of times we'll apply like a manganese sulfate or something, something like that. And it'll take care of that problem. Hunter, any other comments on on foliar applications of of potash or any other nutrients, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I won't, I mean y'all know I just talked about my stance on potash. But one one micro that we put out all the time is boron, yeah. You know, because of of its relationship to the flowering and all that bowl development. Um, so we did a study at nine sites over three years, and the interesting thing to me that um that we found was putting boron boron out with your side-dress nitrogen. So putting it in with like your fluid and end sources actually increased tissue concentrations over foliar feeding boron.
SPEAKER_02Interesting.
Foliar Nutrition Reality Check
SPEAKER_01And I think that's because it, you know, we put out boric acid, 10% boric acid, which is borate. Um, and I think again that goes back to how the plant takes it up and the mobility in the plant, just like nitrate. And we actually had one of our growers on the cotton board in Virginia when I gave the first year. I mean, this is probably the most consistent trial I've ever done in my career. We don't I didn't always see yield bump, but we always saw the soil-aplied boron outperform foliar boron, whether it was boric acid or whether it was uh some of the retailers in this area have stopped letting me have product to test um because of it. But we will outperform with two quarts of boron with our side dress nitrogen, we're outperforming multiple at foliar applications.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um and so in terms of leaf tissue boron concentrations, yeah. Uh so we've gone now from recommending foliar boron to recommending a quart to two quarts in with your side dress nitrogen and putting it out with your nitrogen and side dress. Um, so that's an interesting study. I didn't anticipate finding that out, but I had a grower fact check me on that because they tissue test a lot. And he said when we started putting it out with our nitrogen, we stopped chasing tissue tests.
SPEAKER_02Man, that's that's really neat. I know some folks who do it with like a lay by rig, right? And it's only a cut, and there ain't many people using lay-by rigs anymore, right, for herbicide for weed control. But I mean, some of those guys do that and instead of going over the top. So that's that's very interesting. Um, glad to hear that that's more efficient. So maybe we'll start doing that here on the station. So, all right, last thing, and and you know, keep in mind the the goal of this podcast is optimizing inputs for 2026. And so, kind of the last thing that I want to talk about, and we've been on this for uh an hour almost, right? And we could probably spend another hour on this next one, some of the unproven products, right? Kind of seems like Hunter alluded to something a second ago that I thought was really funny that uh dealers won't let him have product to do research with anymore. And uh I think that may happen with some of these other type products. You know, you can call them whatever you want to, snake oils, you know, stuff like that, whatever. But I I'm gonna call them unproven products just because they hadn't been proven to work. So there's a lot of different perspectives on on some of these things and maybe what they are and and what they could bring to the table and some different stuff like that. But we'll we'll kind of jump around and talk about some of these unproven products and um kind of go from there. Because I I mean, to me, you know, I had a grower ask me last year, going into last year, he was like, man, I'm trying to figure out what to cut. I follow the book. We put out a production guide every year. He says, I follow the book, I'm not using any of these things, so don't even ask, right? And so for the people that are considering using these things to try to get out of a hole, right? What have y'all seen in some of your work or what advice can you give to growers about looking at uh some of these type products?
Unproven Products: Microbials, Sugars, Humics
SPEAKER_00So I just did crop situation a week or two ago with Mississippi State folks talking about some of this stuff. Of course, all of you were on the multi-state cotton project, which I think we've about got the documents edited enough where it's going to go to agronomy journal. Um, and I also plugged my own blog, which is OSUMPK, where I break down mechanisms of humiconfobic acids. So, not what you should do, but this is what they're supposed to do. Mechanisms of the humiconfolvics, mechanisms of sugar in a soil system, because that's all hot rage right now with uh QLF coming on the marketplace, really for us. And then the microbials. And so we were all multi-state microbial project, two years, 30 some odd sites. We basically went from Arizona to South Carolina, and we couldn't change with microbials for nitrogen enhancement, we couldn't change the tissue concentration, much less the link yield of any location. Uh, and so one of those things, and we look at it, the microbial, and I'll break it down. Microbial is all about what's your purpose? Microbials have a lot of different purposes. Some are making nitrogen, some are breaking down organic matter, some are in symbiotic, uh, meaning that you're making some kind of a relationship with the plant root. And a lot of the jugs out there just have all of them. To me, it's like the the 20-way cover crop where if I throw enough things at it, maybe something will stick. But I've been doing this testing for 20 years now as uh from a master's student. So the first time I had a jug was an 03. And so yeah, that that makes me old enough. I can tell you of all the things I've tested, the one take home is they're consistently inconsistent. Meaning, I have had products hit home runs without a doubt. I just can't get that product to repeat itself in the same environment or different environments. And I can't logistically or logically explain why it worked that one time and doesn't work other times. And so I've been testing some products for over 10 years and it just doesn't hit the microbials. Are I I'll truly think that we can have a better impact on our system with our management strategies than we ever will with adding something to the system. Um, I am a little leery on the sugars. I will tell you the the QLF product, that boost, it is mineralizing nitrogen. Uh, I've proven that pretty well. You can get 30 to 40 pounds of nitrogen through mineralization. I'm not sure I'm excited about mineralizing that much organic matter in in my soil. So I don't have a lot of organic matter to give up. So we're looking at long-term influences. I do know guys that like to run raw sugar, they'll go to Walmart and get a freaking pallet of great value sugar. Uh-huh. Um, it happens. It does. That that immobilizes nitrogen uh if you've got a fair amount of carbon. So we're we're looking at sugar in a long-term system in Oklahoma. Uh, but folks are doing about everything they possibly can to reduce input cost. And they're I've seen the ads blow up in the last 30 days.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. Really targeting guys who are gearing up, right? Getting ready to do some stuff. Uh, Hunter or Katie, anything to add on on the on the unproven product side?
SPEAKER_03Ryan said it perfectly.
SPEAKER_02Great.
SPEAKER_03Consistently and inconsistent.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you know, it's uh these guys, they all uh need a home run, right, to kind of make it to make it work in 2026. And you know, you there's just not any silver bullets out there, right? And and that's kind of what I would tell somebody who's looking at some of this stuff. And and I mean, I tell them, you know, hey, if you want to try a strip in a field or whatever, but don't don't do the whole farm and then call and say, man, it was the best crop I ever made. And then it's like, well, it it was also one of the best years we've ever had.
SPEAKER_00So hey, Ken, I'll I'll add this, and I think everybody on here would be the same. If I could find a product that only worked 10% of the time, but I can predict the 10%, that one pH, that one piece of ground, I'm gonna be all in on it. I just need to know, I need to be able to be somewhat confident on when I make a rec that at least it's a 50-50 shot that there's going to be an economic ROI. Uh, and I I like to know the failure points and the win points. MBPT is a perfect point. I know when it's going to fail, and I know when it's going to succeed. We've got a lot of good research on that because it's for us, it's not a win every every time, it's an environment. And a lot of these products, we don't know the drivers of when it wins and when it loses. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. And I want to reiterate too that you know, to have a highly functionable soil, highly functioning soil, we have to have the biology present. But I think, you know, the environment selects. And so just because we throw a jug at it doesn't mean that those bacteria are going to proliferate in the soil. And so if we could take a deeper dive, really try to understand our systems and what are, you know, the bacteria that are going to benefit the system, then maybe we could have greater success with the products that we're using.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you know, I I think about I I'm a big gardener. I got a garden at my house. And I and I think a lot about how if you plant a seed in a greenhouse, right? And then you move it outside and you immediately plant it in your garden, nine times out of ten, it's probably gonna die because you didn't harden that thing. It's been grown in a greenhouse, right? It's it's not used to the outside environment. It's really harsh out there. You know, things things just the world hits it really hard and then it won't survive. And so you gotta harden that plant off before you plant it in the ground so that it can withstand transplant shock and all that good stuff. And and I think about it a lot of the same way, like you just said, Katie, about these things that even though they they might be in that jug, when you put them in the soil, is just it is a harsh world out there. And so they they probably they may not survive. And that's that hey, it's part of life, you know.
SPEAKER_00I don't know if we know if we want them to survive. I mean, the the back in the SRS, the soil research services days. Kudzu, multiflora rows and Sri Celespediza was a good idea. The government supported the use of Kudzu, multiflora rows and Sri Celespediza, and because it was it was road bank stabilization and stream bank stabilization. Uh-huh. That makes good weed. Grows fast, replicates, and reproduces quickly. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Well, and it's like the the cover crop conversation, right? Where we were talking about, hey, save the world with cover crops and this is all great and carbon sequestration and all this good stuff. But in the real world, that ain't how it always works. You know, it certainly has benefits, and I've said multiple times, because I don't want anybody coming after me, I'm a big fan of cover crop. Okay. But I mean, it's just sometimes you got to do what you got to do to make a crop, and sometimes those covers might be in your way, and that's fine. You know, it's just part of the system.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, it's all about how you manage the cover crop, right? And so, and I think with a well-managed cover crop or a well-managed crop rotation, you can build up the beneficial bacteria and fungi in your soil to a level level that you're gonna see the benefits possibly well beyond what you could get from adding the jug to your soil.
SPEAKER_00That's right, yeah. That multi-state project, one thing that I gained more from that was working with Tom Ducey out of AR ARS out of South Carolina. He just a wealth of information and knowledge about the microbial system and soils, and he stressed is that you know, our plants will signal what they want and give them a year, and they will have the the population that the environment and the plant wants around that. We don't necessarily have to add anything. The natural system's really good at doing itself, and that's one he stressed quite a bit.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, for sure. Natural selection's a thing for a reason, right? So man, really good discussion. I have thoroughly enjoyed this. So thank y'all again for joining us for this episode of the Cotton Specials Corner Podcast. Of course, uh, want to keep in mind that this this episode is about optimizing inputs, fertility inputs going into 2026. So, certainly, you know, glad to have these experts on there. I learned a lot, and as I mentioned earlier, I thoroughly enjoyed the discussion. It felt like we were jumping around a lot, but I did enjoy it because there's a lot of different things that go into a good management program, right? And all this stuff is part of it. So, again, certainly want to thank Dr. Katie Lewis, Dr. Hunter Frame, and Dr. Brian Arnall uh for joining us today. And if you have any questions or requests for uh other topics, please feel free to reach out. And thank you to Cotton Incorporated for the sponsorship of this effort.
Practical Takeaways And Closing Thanks
SPEAKER_05Well, you take all my money, you take all my pride, you take up all my time, and then you take me for a ride. I got cotton picking, cotton picking, cotton growing blue Lord. I can't live without you, but living with you make a man wanna do. I got cotton picking, cotton pick, and cotton growing blue. I'm a part of thing on my doom. Or a few cents a pound. You come back with pounding mixed to go around the gun. Cotton pick Cotton pick and cotton growing bloom Lord, I came there without you, it's still the only life I'd ever chew. Well, if it was a wee day, they simply call you corn. You promised me the moon, and then I wish I wasn't born. I got cotton picking, cotton pickin', cotton growing blue Lord. I came there without you Living with you. What am I gonna do? One rain away from glory, but it's still the only life I'd ever choose. Well, I finally made some money, it's the cotton picking cotton grooving blue.