Drop Cloths and PGRs - July in the Cotton Field

Cotton is progressing on schedule with 79% squaring and 32% setting bolls, and the UGA team sees strong potential for the 2025 crop despite some management challenges.

• Stink bug management critical now as cotton sets bolls, with scouts checking for internal damage
• While checking for stink bugs, scout for plant bugs using a drop cloth to ensure they are controlled if necessary
• Spider mites appearing in some fields with abamectin still effective, though severe cases may need multiple treatments
• Potassium deficiency often appears during boll formation, especially in sandy soils
• Late potassium interventions work best at third to fourth week of bloom, with foliar applications having limited rescue value
• Growth regulator timing critical during rapid growth phase from squaring through third week of flowering
• Cotton growing faster than the normal 3 days per node in many situations, making timely monitoring essential
• Focus on top five nodes where new growth occurs, using the "three-finger" test between the fourth and fifth node
• PGR applications can accelerate maturity by 2-3 weeks, critical for late-planted cotton
• Water use peaks during rapid growth phase at canopy closure and peak bloom
• With cotton at 68 cents, focus on proven inputs rather than unproven products promising miracle results
• Mid-year Cotton Meeting scheduled for July 23rd in Statesboro - register at georgiacottoncommission.org

Transcript

Camp Hand 0:08

bringing you all things cotton production and pest management. This is the talking cotton podcast with the university of georgia cotton team. Let's get into the whys of putting on throwing off. And Today is July the 16th, wednesday, july the 16th and we're looking out the window. It's a beautiful day in Tifton. A little update on the crop progress report. This past crop progress report was for the weekend in July the 13th, 2025, and it looks like we are maybe a little bit ahead of schedule.

Camp Hand 0:47

Dr Roberts, we're 79% squaring and even 32% setting bowls. So we're 32. 32, and the five-year average is 30. So we're moving real quick and so we got a good bit of stuff to talk about today. Got a good crowd. Of course, sarah is with us. Sarah, good morning everybody. Hey, good morning, good afternoon, if you're listening in the afternoon.

Camp Hand 1:16

Dr Roberts, good morning, good day, good day Henry. Dr Henry Sintim, good day. Fertility soils and fertilizers. He's going to help us make cotton on Sorry Land. And then Dr John Snider is with us, a cotton physiologist, hello, hello, okay, so got a lot going on out there. Of course, some of our latest planted cotton probably started squaring last week. We're in the second week of squaring on that, but I mean just about everything else on the station here is starting to bloom, uh, because most of it was planted before may the 15th, and so I got some stuff that's starting to cut out and got some stuff that's, uh, second week of squaring, so we still got a ways to go on, uh, some of this crop, and so Dr. Roberts, real quick, what's the word out there on the insects?

Phillip Roberts 2:08

Well, the insects are relatively quiet. We do have cotton that is set in bowls. So stink bug management needs to be on our mind. A lot of research, you know, was done on stink bugs and we have a lot of confidence in thresholds. So I would encourage growers to make sure their scouts are pulling bolls, looking for internal bull damage, and just make good decisions. We do need to be aware if we're dealing with green, southern green or brown stink bugs. If we're dealing with brown stink bugs and they're present at high numbers we will need to add an organophosphate. You could add four ounces of Bidrin or half pound of Orthene with Bifenthrin to pick up brown stink bugs, or you could run full rates of pound of Orthene or six ounces of Bidrin alone. Now, one of the things that those treatments will do when we target brown stink bugs if we have plant bugs in the system, that's going to help us pick up plant bugs. But we do need to be aware that plant bugs can be a potential problem throughout bloom. We saw some of that last year. We don't need to get behind here. Scouts, consultants, get your drop cloth out. The only way we can make a good decision is to know what's in the field. The only other thing to mention is spider mites. Spider mites are not an insect but we have had some spider mite calls in the last week. Abamectin is our most economical treatment and is still very active on mites in the state of Georgia. If you have a very high infestation of mites it may take two applications. So just be aware of that. It's hard to clean these up when they're really tough in the field. Otherwise, that's about it. Aphids have pretty much crashed across the state due to the naturally occurring fungus.

Phillip Roberts 4:03

I will mention whiteflies just briefly. What's today? July the 16th? Yeah, that's right. We are picking up in other folks across South Georgia individual whiteflies in fields and it's important that we notice when they get into a field because that's going to influence some decisions we make, trying to minimize risk for Encouraging those white flies to really get established. But you know our goal is to get to August, yeah, and not have high numbers of white flies. So it's not unusual to see these single white flies. We're seeing them in Tifton. They're seeing them in a lot of areas of South Georgia. We just got to be there and be aware of what's in the field and make good decisions, right right and back to the.

Camp Hand 4:54

You know stink bugs and making those decisions, knowing what's causing the internal bowl damage, right, but you got out of those a lot of those calls last year said man, we sprayed for stink bugs and my internal bowl damage went up. So what's going on?

Phillip Roberts 5:10

so tarnished plant bug, clouded plant bugs can both feed on bowls, just like a stink bug. And if you brought me some damaged bowls or you brought them to sarah, who's looked at a lot, and we had those in front of us on the table, I can't tell you if it's a plant bug that did it a clouded plant bug, that did it a brown stink bug, a leaf-footed bug, so it's kind of a bowl-feeding bug complex. So if you make an application for stink bugs, so to speak, and your internal bowl damage does not come down, maybe you miss plant bugs. And we missed them last year bifenthrin straight , yeah, and we've said it every podcast, I think. But we have very little bifenthrin is that is going to provide acceptable control of plant bugs.

Camp Hand 6:02

If you say it in every podcast, that means you mean it. I do mean it. I said it multiple times, said it once, I mean it. That's one time is all it takes.

Phillip Roberts 6:12

Yeah but as a whole, we're in good shape. Uh, just need to keep working through this crop. Yeah, that's right, this crop is progressing really fast, you know it. We've got some early planted cotton. We even some at 41. We're getting close. As far as insects, we're getting to the finish line, well, we sprayed stink bugs once.

Camp Hand 6:35

I think next time we talked about going out and maybe taking care of some spider mites while we were out there. Yes, that's going to be it. That's it. I mean, there hadn't been much to speak of. We've been looking for plant bugs and that field can't buy one.

Phillip Roberts 6:52

Okay, come across the road now Sprayed them, and we still got them where I didn't spray.

Camp Hand 6:57

Well, where I sprayed them, they ain't there, so that's good.

Phillip Roberts 7:05

But where we didn't spray them, guess what? They're there, they're still. They're still there and we're letting them cook, we're letting them build, letting them eat. Dr snyder, we want a research grade population of bugs, that's right, and you just let them go but you know, some of that early stuff is getting close and I believe it was.

Camp Hand 7:23

We sprayed to pivot this week, yep, and that was the first time we've sprayed stink bugs in it, so it does seem like it's been a little bit more of a quiet year, or maybe we're just actually looking.

Phillip Roberts 7:34

Well it's just a hit or miss. Yeah, I mean, you know, on a year like this, we we talk about thresholds and you know thresholds are designed to maximize profits. Thresholds are not designed to eliminate insects, right? Dr abney always likes he likes to use the term kill them. You know, if it costs ten dollars to kill an insect and the insect population out there is only going to eat eight dollars of cotton, what do you do? Don't do anything. You let them eat eight dollars worth of cotton. That's right. If it costs ten dollars to kill an insect and they're gonna eat a hundred dollars worth of cotton, guess what? Kill them, kill them, so go get them. But on a year like this, I mean just a little bit of time. Scouting could save you a trip across the field. Yeah, you know a lot of the insecticides which, particularly by fenthrin, is so cheap, but the trip across the field is way more expensive than the actual insecticide we use.

Camp Hand 8:30

Well, and whenever we were just spraying bifenthrin and just spraying it third and fifth week of bloom and not thinking about it, then hey, no big deal, right. But now we got something else out there that we're concerned about. Yes, and there ain't no, there ain't cheap insurance insurance this time.

Phillip Roberts 8:47

That's right and you know we kind of changed up. Well, we're scouting a whole lot more this year on the station. Yeah, it's difficult for us on the station, just like a grower who's spread across multiple counties and a sprayer's broke down and a sprayer's been broke down for two weeks I sprayed.

Camp Hand 9:04

No, because I sprayed with it before Trey left us, and then he took it out and changed all the filters, and that was two weeks ago.

Phillip Roberts 9:16

Well, we still sprayed. We can spray about 30 minutes.

Camp Hand 9:20

And then it overheats, and then it overheats. It's hard to get over everything 30 minutes at a time, yeah, and to move the machine from farm to farm 30 minutes at a time.

Phillip Roberts 9:31

And you can't make it to some of these farms in 30 minutes with that thing.

Fertility Management Strategies

Camp Hand 9:35

No, running 14 miles an hour, but no, we're good, we're good, we're in good shape. Dr Sintim, what's it look like out there with the fertility?

Henry Sintim 9:55

So with the report that came, it looks like folks that planted early, you probably have put out all your side rest nitrogen, which is all good. This is the time really that I like to say, from a nutritional management perspective is just monitoring, yeah, just keep monitoring. Management perspective is just monitoring, yeah, just keep monitoring. So, for folks that planted quite late late may to early june or midweek of june you really probably are considering side dress application. So, as you all know, just follow the recommendation, and that that should be it we we did.

Henry Sintim 10:21

In the newsletter that came last month, in May. I talked about the fact that if that field has a history of run growth is very vegetative, you need to reduce the nitrogen rate just so that, because cotton is quite, it's not just having more growth, that translates to yield, and run growth can cause humidity and a lack of airflow, leading to borax. So just keep an eye, just follow the recommendation. The main reason I want to point out here, though, is, as you monitor the crop I've been here since 2019, and one of the number one out of the number one problem at this time of the season, especially as the bowl forms is, potassium gets depleted pretty quickly. I did mention that one of the ways to go about it had been to reduce maybe 30%, especially for those in very deep sun. If you are not in a deep sun field, it's time to monetize it.

Henry Sintim 11:21

Don't just make a hasty decision to try and fix the problem, especially when it's very, very late. When we are talking about sixth, seventh week of bloom. You might aesthetically improve the look of the cotton but may not necessarily make any yield improvement. So just keep an eye on it. But if it does happen very early third week of bloom, whatever you might want to fix that, most of the time potassium nitrate has been what people would just put out as a supplemental potassium to get it going. But for me the message is keep an eye on the field, document history of that field have persistent history of, but late is in, potassium deficiency. Then you might want to start looking into 70 30 percent split, as we've mentioned, and most likely problematic fields would likely be in the very deep sand soils. That's where we've we've had persistent problem areas throughout the throughout the years yeah.

Camp Hand 12:21

So I did get a call last week, henry, from a county agent. They had spread I think it was something like 75 units for side dress, and as soon as they pulled out of the field, four inches of rain dropped on them. So what do you do in a situation like that? I, I told them to pull petiole samples just to see if it got anything right. But I mean, do you go back out with a little bit more? And I struggle with this because cotton is only selling for 68 cents, right, and I, I don't. I don't want to tell them to go spread some more, especially if we don't need it. So what, what's kind of your, your thought on the like that?

Henry Sintim 13:03

So, first of all, you may ask what source of nitrogen? If it's the liquid form, what is going to happen? It was dry, it was a very large broadcast application.

Henry Sintim 13:13

Yeah, and it didn't get an overnight. If it got an overnight before the rain set, no overnight, just an application. You're going to lose some, for sure, but you're not going to lose everything. Yeah. With the current market price, I would say watch it. Yeah, watch it. Um, it's most of the time.

Henry Sintim 13:34

From my research plot, what we do see is that it delays the uptake, meaning that sometimes, yes, you're going to in those instances, you're going to have to wash away in terms of runoff losses, but most of the time, those that get dissolved right away infiltrate deeper into the soil profile. So it just takes a little bit more time for majority of the root, especially given the root system of cotton. It just take it a while to access those nitrogen and I have seen fields that look like, oh, we didn't get a nitrogen, and just a week or two they start to green up, a meaning that they've now been able to intercept those nitrogen. So you lose some. But I would say patience would be there. I would be patient just to see if the plant can take them up. If not, then maybe that's when you want to make that call, yeah that's what I think too.

Camp Hand 14:25

And even yesterday I was talking to a grower and county agent about a situation down in down in lounges county, where they had they had 25% of the field they said was cut out and the rest of it was probably just above your knee and they had just put out some more nitrogen, like a week ago, maybe a week and a half, and they were asking if they need to put out more.

Camp Hand 14:49

And I think I I'm like you, hey, let's just wait, let's see what it does, let's take, let's see if it gets it up and then, with some of this rain that we've been having, it's gonna help kind of spur things along. Maybe we'll catch a couple more and it'll get a little bit more of that stuff and start going back like it's going to help kind of spur things along. Maybe we'll catch a couple more and it'll get a little bit more of that stuff and start going back like it's supposed to. But I definitely am in the boat of hey, if you're in doubt, let's wait a week and then see what's going on and kind of make some decisions based on that. But in terms of potash and making notes about next year, what can we do this year if we start to see it crashing out on us.

Henry Sintim 15:28

If it crashed out that early, then you cannot inject. Your only mode of applying it is through foliar. Out of nine studies that I have seen, only two that got response to foliar potassium application as a rescue mission. I need to distinguish between foliar and injection. Injection is applying it through the, the pivot or the irrigation system. That is different from foliar. Foliar feeding is pretty much spraying, like you are spraying a herbicide and allowing whatever settles on the leaf, hoping that it intercepts it through the leaf. Foley application is not that very effective. So in that instance, like I said, nine studies I have looked at, two out of that, nine did show response. So again, I would definitely be more conservative on that.

Henry Sintim 16:21

But in terms of being able to inject that, it says that the sources is limited. What source are you even going to use? I, potassium nitrate. That is soluble, but even with that it'll settle out. Yes, a lot of work. So I I don't. There is Kts people might look into, but that is very expensive. Yeah, I would say, reserve it for those vegetable folks, those that have value crops. Cotton is not, and so these are some of the and, if it happens very, very late, if you can do that, potassium nitrate as a broadcast application. That is very critical. Let's say you are in third week of bloom, fourth week of bloom and you are cutting out very quickly. I think that one your chances of seeing benefit to the intervention is higher. But if that has been noted down, I would say plan for next year and let's try and solve the problem up front.

Growth Regulator Timing and Application

Camp Hand 17:16

Yeah, and the foliar feeding thing we've talked about it a lot. I've done it on a lot of acres out there at Bowen Farm. We do it every year because I think it helps us. We were on a rescue mission I think it was my first year and we foliar fed that cotton twice a week with 10 pounds today. So it was getting five pounds of potash every time we sprayed, plus we spread some dry. So we were trying to uh rescue that cotton.

Camp Hand 17:47

But it's important to keep in mind that it's really hard once you get too far into it to bring it back from the dead. You know, and it uh, whenever you spray 10 pounds of foliar potassium nitrate, you're getting 4.6 pounds of potash and it's using more than that in a day. Yep, so it's just not. It's not enough to really rely on. It's just to help you get past the finish line a little bit. If you start seeing it start coming up short at the end of the year, then hey, let's put a little bit out there to kind of help it. But if we're at the third week of bloom and it starts crashing out like you're talking, I mean that's going to be a tough situation, right.

Henry Sintim 18:31

That one, I even. I think with that third week of bloom you should be able to go over cotton with the regular. I think I don't know how feasible, but if you were maintaining your pets, well, that should the height should be decent enough to be able to go over and make that.

Camp Hand 18:48

Right, right. So lots to think about in terms of fertility and even thinking about next year, it sounds like to me. So we actually just side dressed our June 11th cotton this week. It got top dressed on Monday. So that's the end of our side dress applications here on the station. But, dr Snyder, it is July and we're talking about cotton, and so there's a lot of stuff that's going on out there in terms of what you work on, whether it's growth regulators or water or anything like that, and I know you've been out early in the morning and late into the day here the last few days, even maybe the last few weeks, so it is a busy time for you. So greatly appreciate you coming in. But what are you seeing out there? What do you think would be pertinent for these guys to be thinking about right now?

John Snider 19:40

Well, thanks for having me here today. I think actually Henry said it, I think repeatedly whenever he was talking he kept saying monitor, monitor, monitor. Right, so keeping track of that crop and in terms of when we talk about growth, this is the time of year. And again back to kind of what you were saying we've got a crop that's maybe just just at squaring all the way out to cut out. Yeah, so there's a lot of variation out there and that's going to influence what those decisions are.

John Snider 20:10

I would just say, monitoring that crop in terms of its growth from a growth management standpoint, yeah, as a general rule, we don't recommend applications prior, prior to that eight to ten leaf stage, when you start seeing those pinhead squares on there. But at least start monitoring then, especially I would say if, if you've got some later planted cotton, that's going to become more important because we don't want to run out of growing season. And then the other thing would be, in fields where you have a history of of rank growth, yeah, real aggressive real aggressive varieties, stuff like that, yeah, that's right.

John Snider 20:45

But the good thing about it is, as long as you're monitoring growth. I think that's the key there, whether we're talking about an aggressive variety or we're talking about maybe a higher nitrogen type situation or just a field that has a history of rank growth, monitoring that field is the key. And so you know there's multiple ways to do that. We have some height to node ratios that we kind of set as okay, here's an ideal height to node ratio for that early part of the year, and then it kind of progresses. You have these larger height to node ratios once we get into flowering.

John Snider 21:20

But to just kind of take it all back to the, the physiology of the crop, when we get between from about squaring on through that third week of flowering somewhere in that neighborhood, we're in that phase of growth.

John Snider 21:32

That's probably the highest growth rate phase that we have. So so when we talk about picks, management or whatever, whatever the name is of your favorite pgr sure, containing product, sure, what's the most important thing from a, from a management perspective, if you really want to keep that, keep that growth under control, I think everyone on here would probably say the same thing. Right, so camp, what would you say is the most important thing? Timing. It's timing right, and the reason that matters is once we get into that, rapid growth phases, which which is when our pgr management even matters. Yeah, you know, you have a crop that's growing pretty rapidly, let's say from first flower. If you miss it by a week, week and a half, because of weather, which I don't think would be uncommon right right now, or a broke down sprayer, or broke down sprayer, whatever, whatever, whatever the reason is, you know, in that that time frame that crop has assuming it's growing well it's doubled in size.

John Snider 22:28

So all of a sudden, your rate that you were going to apply is no longer applicable. Yeah, that size of a crop, that's right, and so there's a lot of different tools out there to help folks make decisions, but the rate itself is really tied to how much biomass we have right here. So in the when we're at, if you're making an application at squaring, you don't need near as much to achieve the same growth control type of right, well, and even last week I was, was that last week I went over there to burke county, I think it was, I don't.

Camp Hand 22:59

I think it was. Last week I was talking to an industry rep and he takes node counts and all their plots and everything. And he told I said something about the crop is growing really fast, like we just need to keep our eyes on it, and all this and of course I'm just talking anecdotally I drive up and down the road and I see cotton. It looks real wavy. I'm like, yeah, that stuff's starting to get away. But he, he told me he was like man, I took these node counts and he said we're averaging 2.2 days per node and so and normally we're talking three days. Yeah, right. So I mean, this crop is really getting after it and the key is to get out there and look at it.

John Snider 23:36

That's right, and it's really that that height to node ratio, that's going to tell you how stretched out those nodes are. And once the crop gets a certain size, we're really focusing on those top five nodes Right, just because that's where all the new growth is really occurring.

Camp Hand 23:52

You're not going to shrink it. You're not going to shrink the plant, you're not going to shrink it. That's right.

John Snider 23:55

When you start counting further down the plant, that growth's already happened. You're not going to do anything about it. But again, the rates would be tied to how much biomass is out there. That's why you know when we we miss an application.

Phillip Roberts 24:10

It's so difficult to try to catch all right to try to catch up. So you said you look at those top five nodes. Yeah, because that's the nodes where the inner nodes are still elongating. Is that right? That's right, a lot of. I'll look at one specific internode.

John Snider 24:25

Yeah, between the fourth and fifth node right, and a lot, especially during flowering. If you could, just as a general rule, you can fit what, phillip?

John Snider 24:35

Three fingers, three fingers right Now, your fingers versus mine, I mean it's gonna be a little bit different, but as a quick way to monitor the crop, that's a pretty easy way to monitor the crop, to get out to look at it and see if growth is getting away from you, and so I think that's one of those things that, when we're talking about making these decisions, you know if we're in a more stress type of environment, most likely those inner nodes are not going to be elongating and you're not going to need to make that application. So again, that's a pretty straightforward way to monitor the crop. I think, especially into this flowering phase, yeah, but especially if you've got squaring cotton that meets that threshold, it's, it's moving, it's really moving, yeah, yeah. So I think that's important. And the other thing, the reason we care about it, especially with the later planted crop, yeah, why? What else other than you know it does?

Camp Hand 25:25

two things. It does a couple of different things. Two things keeps cotton short and shortens your season exactly. I'm sure it needs your season maturity.

John Snider 25:35

Yeah, you have earlier maturity so that fruit will set earlier. You'll set at lower positions on the plant and so that plant will finish up earlier now the how much it gains and how much you get out of it in terms of earlier maturity.

John Snider 25:48

It could be we've seen it as much as two to three weeks, depending on how much growth potential there is right at that site, and so that doesn't mean it's going to do that for every site, right. But if, if earliness is key, for example for later planets, yeah, monitoring and and and that's the main thing you may not have to make some of these applications, but monitor and make those decisions accordingly yeah, and they, you know, over in the east side of the state they got a lot more rain than we did over here this time, and so they were after mother's day.

Camp Hand 26:22

They kind of struggled to get the crop in, and that's something I'm going to actually spend some time talking about next week at the mid-year meeting, if we're worried about time. Then we got to be more aggressive on our PGR, because that's going to buy us a little bit, and most times if you are a little more aggressive, it's most of the time not going to reduce yield. That's right.

John Snider 26:47

I think most of the time is a good way to say that.

Camp Hand 26:51

There's all kind of work out there on picks and sometimes it increases yield and sometimes it decreases yield and sometimes it don't do nothing. And I think me and you both could come up with all kind of situations in trial work that we've done, where we've seen all of it. But I'll tell you one thing about methoquat chloride.

Phillip Roberts 27:09

It works. It works every single time it does, if you do the correct rate at the correct timing and it don't rain.

John Snider 27:17

It's so consistent. Yeah, that's right. That's the other thing. So camp, yeah. And it all rains. It's so consistent, yeah, that's right. Oh, that's the other thing.

Phillip Roberts 27:23

So camp if it doesn't rain, what is rain fast?

Camp Hand 27:24

Yeah, so we did that a couple years ago I guess, and I've actually gotten a couple calls on it and folks want to know what is it really? You know because on the label it says eight hours and if you put in an adjuvant it cuts it back to four. But really eight hours and if you put in an adjuvant cuts it back to four, but but really I'm pretty confident at four hours, four hours across board. Whether you have an adjuvant or not. I really think that it's going to do what it's supposed to do and and slow the growth of the crop enough, and sometimes that two hour time you're going to get a little bit out of it. But that's another key. There is that if you're out there and you're spraying and within a couple hours comes a rain, we got to monitor right and let's make sure that it's doing what it's supposed to do and if it's not, then let's get back out there when we need to get back out there this is also where you were on that field.

Phillip Roberts 28:14

That's right when it's you're about to be in trouble. I might err on yeah, going back, but it's back to monitoring.

Camp Hand 28:22

One thing that I noticed I did a little bit of spraying last week out at a little bit of weed control and I noticed that our little sprayer it covers about five acres and there used to be some flags in the tractor when we run out. We could go, put a flag and say, all right, I need to come back here, that's what I need to do. Well, last week I was spraying and the flags weren't in the tractor and I was like, oh man, like what am I gonna do? I went and I threw a glove on the ground to kind of mark my spot. But at the end of the day, it may not be a bad idea to carry something to mark a spot. If it becomes a pop-up shower, then hey, I was here whenever I decided to quit.

Camp Hand 29:01

And, or gps, or whatever, surely you can mark a point on a gps. Oh, yeah, I mean I, not on our sprayer. No, no, not on ours. Yeah, we, you just got it. Well, I was on a tractor but it didn't have satellite, so we were, uh, we were just going with it. But yeah, I mean there's, you know, that's a good thought is to make sure you know where you were whenever you decided to quit.

Phillip Roberts 29:26

I was coming down 82 the other day and there was a great big high boy and I should have turned around and took a picture. But he was just sitting there at the end of the road, big black cloud, and he's sitting there. He's got his hands on his head, and you know he's sitting there. He's got his hands on his head and you know he's like what do I do?

Phillip Roberts 29:45

you know, thinking about it, he's thinking about it, yeah and, but you know those are things people deal with every day. Oh yeah, but I know that's got to be stressful for folks sometimes.

Camp Hand 29:56

Yeah, send it there was one time, yeah, I ain't scared to say send it, but I there was one time I was in graduate school and we went down to expo to spray a treatment and it wasn't even my study, it was dr singleton's study. But I was spraying it and I got down there and I looked at them clouds way over there and I threw some grass up in there. I said no, they're gonna go, they're gonna go, so we're good, go out there and spray it. About two hours later and I mean it turned and it come and it started raining and but it didn't affect our, our weed control. So I mean, that was it.

Water Management and Irrigation

Camp Hand 30:33

But we were monitoring, right, we were keeping an eye on it, so we knew what to be looking for. So, uh, certainly some. But I do understand the situation with the guy with the hands on his head like, oh my god, what do I do? What do I do? I'm already here, yeah, what do I do? So totally understand that. But um, what else? Dr schneider, we talked a little bit about water yesterday yeah, I think that's the.

John Snider 30:59

That's the other thing that I want to talk about. When we, when we discuss plant growth and all of these things, you know water use by the crop is tied to growth. Yeah, we, you'll have people talk a little bit about. Well, you know, if those row middles are open, there's all this evaporation occurring. Now it's when you got more crop out there. Yeah, that crop is using more water, right and so. So that if you were to look at water use versus growth, the two would be lined up almost perfectly, and so we just talked about when is our most rapid growth phase? Right and yeah and so if you've got a crop that's out there at canopy closure, you're at peak bloom. That's going to be your maximum water use time frame, and so I think that's the thing that you got to be thinking about.

John Snider 31:40

There's a lot of different tools available from a water management standpoint. Yeah, you just would want to want to keep track of that and make sure that you're supplying what the crop needs. We got checkbook method. We got all different. We got all kind of stuff. If you want to use it, that's right, that's right. But I would say you know, most places we've got mean. It ranges from some water logging looking plots that I saw over at Midville to I've got some extreme drought over in Camilla, so it's patchy.

Camp Hand 32:09

When did you go to Midville? I guess it would be. Was it yesterday or two days ago? Two days ago they got six inches on Sunday night, so we rolled in there right after the six inch rain event.

John Snider 32:22

There's a reason it looked waterlogged over there and we basically stopped driving down one of those roads and just parked off to the side. I didn't want to get stuck.

Phillip Roberts 32:33

I was going to go Tuesday.

Henry Sintim 32:35

We just happened to be talking about it.

Phillip Roberts 32:37

It's been a busy week and we always call Anthony.

Camp Hand 32:41

Sometimes you're busy, you forget and, uh, I would haul my sprayer over there and haul it back yep, and then turn around and come home, yeah, but uh, six inches yep in about two hours, yeah. So he told us he needed rain, but he didn't know if he needed it. All right then.

John Snider 32:58

So it was a, it was a big one over there, for sure yeah, that's right, but in uh, like I say in in camilla, it's a sandier soil uh it'll that water will be depleted faster, especially given the growth phase of the crop right now. So lots of different methods out there that you can use keeping tabs on that and educating accordingly making sure you're accurately measuring rainfall.

Camp Hand 33:22

I think that's a big key, you know we. So we've talked about this out on the podcast and that people can use it or not, or whatever. But somebody put a rain gauge out there where I'm using it, and it's measuring rainfall and irrigation and so I I say, hey, let's put three quarters of an inch out. Well, then the next day I get an email from the farm manager saying, hey, we're having pivot problems. Well, I go back and look and it was putting out 1.4 inches. I said, yeah, you are having pivot problems. So I mean making sure that we're accurately measuring the amount we're putting out and not just assuming, okay, well, this percentage is this, and rolling on and then also accurately measuring what you're getting in terms of rainfall that's right.

John Snider 34:08

If that's not accurate, yeah, then the whole thing's out. Yeah, the whole thing's out the window. Yeah and um, I think that's one key thing that we have to monitor. I mean the and the soil type that you enter into that app. That matters a lot. We've got double the water holding capacity here that we have in Camilla.

Camp Hand 34:28

It's all these rocks around here.

John Snider 34:30

Yeah, but you know, if you overestimate water holding capacity, then you're going to assume the crop is not under stress, when it really is Right to assume the crop is not under stress when it really is right. So I had a student was using the app not too long ago not really the app, but using the spreadsheet that the app is based on and they had the wrong soil type entered into the one of the columns. You know, yeah and sure. The next I go out there and I'm looking at the crop and everything is wilted. All my well-watered stuff is wilted, you know.

Camp Hand 34:59

And and I go in and start looking through the spreadsheet and we figured it out oh yeah, there's all kind of stuff to uh keep an eye on, but there's cotton out there. Yesterday afternoon I was over near osceola, between osceola and douglas, and even coming back, I mean, some of that stuff looks like it needs a drink of water, you know, and it's been hot this week and and uh, humid out there for sure. So we're using water right now, whether it's squaring cotton or blooming or whatever, I mean it is absolutely using water, just based on the heat and the humidity. That's right.

John Snider 35:33

So yeah, you combine that with the growth stage it's in.

Avoiding Costly Input Mistakes

Camp Hand 35:36

Yeah, you're gonna lose a lot of water. Oh yeah, no, no doubt so. Just a couple other things. I think it was two weeks ago whenever we last did the podcast and I got a phone call that afternoon, dr Roberts, that made me a little ill, if I can talk about that a little bit, there was an agent that called me over in East Georgia about a guy that was putting all this stuff in his sprayer Because somebody told him to His dealer, told him to Okay, said he needed all this stuff to push his cotton out of these waterlogged conditions. Well, first thing was that all the stuff in the sprayer didn't. They weren't real friendly with each other, so they clogged up his sprayer. So that's strike one, that's fun. Yeah, that's so fun. Yeah, that's real fun. Okay, so strike one. You, you know, cost you time, cost you money to clean your sprayer out.

Camp Hand 36:32

But then I started asking him. I said, well, what all was this? What all this guy say to spray? Well, he always spray the. The grower always sprays picks and boron and manganese. And I said, manganese, like what? What you doing spraying manganese? Like, if you don't need it, don't spray it. Well, he does it every year. I said, okay, like that's fine.

Camp Hand 36:53

I said, well, what's the other thing? He said, well, that's the thing they think was clogging up his sprayer. That didn't play real nice. And and he said it's such a such whatever I don't even remember the name of the product and I said, well, send me a picture of it. And he sent me a picture of it. And, henry, it was like a 524, 5 type product, like a starter fertilizer.

Camp Hand 37:15

You put in a two by two, and this dealer had told him, said, hey, if you spray that foliar, it's gonna help, it's gonna help put down a root system and it's gonna do all this stuff and it's gonna push it out of this waterlogged stress. And you, you put it out there with all this other you. It's going to be great, it's going to be great. And I, I asked the agent, I said, what are we doing? What are we doing?

Camp Hand 37:37

All winter long, all winter long, I went to all these meetings and everybody asked the question. Whether it was at the beginning or the end of the meeting, it didn't matter. How are we gonna make money on this crop? How are we gonna do it? And I think that's a great question, because I mean, we've already talked about the price of cotton today, right, it's gonna sell for 68 cents if you bought, if you tried to sell it today, in december, december, future. So it's gonna be tough to make money, but whenever you start spending money on this stuff, just because spend it on the things you know work yeah, it's just like what.

Camp Hand 38:17

I mean this ain't the year, this just ain't the year to be going out there and just listening to folks, just because y'all are buddies or whatever, and saying, hey, I'm gonna do, I'm gonna go try this, just because my, my buddy said so, and we're going to the beach this weekend and it's gonna be a big time, and and whatever else. I mean I, we, we can't do that. I mean that puts us further into red. We, we already in the red a little bit, so let's not get further in by using unproven products. You know things that we don't think are going to work.

Camp Hand 38:50

I mean we, you know we do all this research here at uga and there's other people doing research and stuff like that. I mean people do research on their farm and that's great that they do that, but at the end of the day, we got to be confident that we're going to get a return on some of this stuff. And with that decision that was made on that farm, with that grower and the dealer giving the advice, I I don't know that we was going to get a return. And and really, whenever you start calculating the, the time lost and the opportunity cost really of cleaning out your sprayer, then hey, we I mean, we definitely lost some money there, you know. So it's uh.

Camp Hand 39:30

If you got a question, call your county agent about these products that are getting sold out there. If you, if you ain't a hundred percent on something, or somebody's telling you that, hey, you need to be doing this or looking at this or or whatever it is, then call somebody, please, before you go and spend the money on it and then turn around and say, well, that was a total waste, right, and we wound up further into red. I don't want anybody that listens to this or anybody in the state of georgia to be in a bad situation or a worse situation than we're already staring at.

John Snider 40:03

So it's uh and water logging is one of the worst. I know you're talking about this much more broadly right, get that right. And water logging is one of the worst. I know you're talking about this much more broadly right, get that right. But water logging is one of the most severe stresses you can impose on that crop and the only thing you can do is wait for things to dry well, and that's what I expect that's what I told the agent.

Camp Hand 40:20

I said man, I said you're smart. I said what's it gonna take for this crop to get out of this? And he said probably time and sunshine. I said you're right. I said it's time and sunshine and I said spraying this stuff over the field ain't going to do nothing, it's just going to take time for this crop to get going.

Phillip Roberts 40:38

You know, I remember years ago Dr Gary Herzog he was a research entomologist here. He's a great cotton man, him and Shelby Baker. They were the two guys who kept working on cotton when cotton was at its low, during the boll weevil days, during the boll weevil days. But I remember because since I've been working in cotton in my career, which has added up some, but we never really plowed cotton, but I had some cotton that was just stuck one time it got water on it and he says you need to find a plow and plow that cotton and it helped. I mean, but it probably just helped dry it out, maybe accelerated that just a couple days but uh, there was a field we were looking at this year and so, and safesthas told, us before we even planted.

Camp Hand 41:30

he said you're going to have to plow that field three times. Yep, that's some of that hard ground where the water won't go in Helping it dry out. Helping it dry out, but then helping the water get in there, or else it was all going to go in the road.

Phillip Roberts 41:46

At the end of the day. You made comments at several meetings this year. You talked about the cotton production guide man, the production guide.

Camp Hand 41:53

Somebody works real hard on somebody works real hard on that.

Phillip Roberts 41:55

But one of the things you said that that I just thought hit home. If it's in there, it's in there for a reason and if it ain't in there?

Camp Hand 42:02

if it ain't in there, it's for a reason. It's for a reason, or perhaps we haven't well, it could be two reasons that it's not in there. The first is that it don't work, that's one, and the second is that we hadn't looked at it.

Phillip Roberts 42:16

And again, you know we want to make inputs with a high chance of return. That's right, any input.

Camp Hand 42:24

Yeah, it don't matter if it's water, yep or fertilizer, insecticides or whatever I work on seed, yeah, seed.

Season Outlook and Upcoming Meetings

Camp Hand 42:33

I mean, you know, all this stuff has got to give a return on that investment, because I mean, if we ain't getting a return on it, then we're just spinning our wheels and we're putting ourselves further in the red, and that's not where we need to be in 2025. We want to. We want to come back next year and plant more cotton and so and do it again. So, uh, that was something that I got a call about a couple of weeks ago. We've talked about a couple of the other calls that I've gotten. So you know, we just we're just rocking along, but we're, uh, we're planning on coming over there to East Georgia next week. So today's the 16th and that mid-year meeting is a week from today, july 23rd, that's right, july 23rd and we're going to be over there in Statesboro talking about Be sure to register yeah, register online georgecottoncommissionorg and there's an agenda there.

Camp Hand 43:28

Uh, it's gonna be a good meeting. I started looking at some, at some data yesterday I guess it was and drawing some comparisons to 2023. You remember 2023, dr roberts. The plant bug thing kind of picked up pre-bloom plant bug. I looked back at my talk from 2023 and we talked a lot more about delayed maturity whether it was plant bugs or deer or weather related and you started looking at DD60s and all that stuff made a big difference in 2023. But this year we were wet but it wasn't as cool. But it wasn't as cool. And so there's a lot of things to talk about in terms of what the crop's doing, what it's looking like, and even DD60 is based on planting date over there in the east side of the state. So there's a lot to discuss over there and I'm excited. I'm excited to go over there and see everybody and visit and look at some cotton.

Phillip Roberts 44:24

Hey, one more thing. Yeah, come on, just the crop as a whole. Henry John Camp. What are you seeing Like in your stuff, just as you're driving? I mean, what I'm seeing?

John Snider 44:35

is. I'm optimistic. Yeah, I would say the same thing. Most of my stuff looks pretty good. Yeah, there's a couple places, but those are places that are always challenging. Yeah, those are places that are always challenging Everything. I've got Henry's one of the high-shielders, as long as I got water.

Henry Sintim 44:49

Yeah, Well, I've been to a number of producer fields and overall this year I felt good, yeah, good, those same fields that I've been in the past year. So I think I was happy.

Camp Hand 45:01

Yeah, I'd say the same thing. I mean there's always going to be fields that you know kind of get away from you, right. I mean I drove by some yesterday that are a little bit of a mess in terms of weed control, but I think overall the crop is good and I think, I think we've got there.

Camp Hand 45:19

As long as they can continue to hold on to that fruit, we'll be all right, that's what I put in my little talk that I'm giving next week. We've got the potential. We got potential for a good one, and so we've just got to finish it. We've just got to make it and gather it. I think it's going to be a good one. 2025, write it down. All right, that's what I want to hear. All right, so see you all next week over there in Statesboro and if you have any questions, call your county agent. Thank you for listening to this episode of Talking Cotton with the UGA Cotton Team. If you have any questions about anything we talked about today, or if there's anything you'd like for us to talk about in the future, please contact your local UGA County Extension agent and, as always, you can find us on all Metro podcast platforms. Be sure to like, share with your friends and subscribe so you can stay up to date.