Talkin' Cotton Podcast
Welcome to the UGA Cotton Team's Talkin' Cotton Podcast. This is a podcast for cotton growers, county agents, industry partners and anyone else interested in learning about science-backed cotton production and pest management. Our goal is to educate you with the most up-to-date data and information all season long. Talkin' Cotton will feature guests, such as, extension specialists, research faculty, graduate students, extension agents, industry allies and many others! Let's get into the why's of puttin' on, throwin' off and cuttin' out.
Talkin' Cotton Podcast
Managing Late-Season Cotton Challenges
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The Georgia cotton crop is racing toward harvest with 21% of bolls already opening—about 5% ahead of the five-year average. This early September period brings ideal "cotton weather" with cool mornings in the high 60s and daytime temperatures around 90°F, creating perfect conditions for final boll development without the stress of extreme heat.
For most fields planted before mid-June, the irrigation season has ended. Water requirements drop significantly by week 18 after planting, and recent rainfall has helped many fields reach adequate soil moisture levels. Unless dealing with unusually late-planted cotton or areas that missed precipitation, growers can confidently terminate irrigation and focus on harvest preparation.
With cotton opening early and peanut harvest approaching simultaneously, equipment readiness becomes critical. Now is the perfect time to perform maintenance on cotton pickers—checking spindles for wear, inspecting doffer pads, and ensuring all systems are properly greased. Taking advantage of current favorable weather for maintenance will prevent costly delays when optimal harvest windows arrive.
Late-season pest pressure presents significant challenges across Georgia's cotton belt. Plant bugs continue causing problems in western counties, while whitefly populations have surged, particularly where harsh chemistry has been applied for other pests. Most concerning is the widespread presence of the cotton jassid, especially in eastern Georgia counties following what appears to be Hurricane Helene's path from last season.
These jassids cause distinctive yellowing along leaf margins resembling potassium deficiency, with damage progressing quickly as photosynthetic capacity decreases. Current management recommendations include a threshold that can be obtained through your local UGA Count Extension Agent, though many recommendations continue evolving as researchers gather more data.
Timely defoliation becomes not just a harvest preparation strategy but an exit from ongoing pest management challenges. With cotton prices around 60 cents per pound, quality preservation through prompt harvest after defoliation will maximize returns in a challenging market environment.
Join us for upcoming field days on September 3rd at Lane Farm in Tifton and September 23rd in Watkinsville to learn more about navigating these late-season decisions for optimal yield and quality outcomes.
Crop Update and Harvest Readiness
Speaker 1Bringing 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 cutting out. Today is August 27thnesday, august 27th and uh it's. It's been busy around here. I'm tired for different reasons than everybody else. I got two little boys at my house that cough all night long, so I hadn't been getting much sleep at the house, but that's all right. Other folks hadn't been getting much sleep either, but that's okay. So, uh, just a little update on the crop. I think it was sarah. It was 95 percent setting bowls and then 21 percent opening, which are uh, the opening number is quite a bit ahead of schedule. I believe we're five percent ahead of average. So this crop is moving. It's moving pretty quick, dr roberts. Uh, it went down last wednesday. They did sprayed the first on the station and it ain't gonna be the last, but it, but it looks, good looks real good.
Speaker 2That was uh, some really early planted cotton. Yeah, oh yeah, the end of march, but we also uh affiliated the mid-, mid-april stuff the April 15th.
Speaker 1It looks good. Yeah, and today's Wednesday, so on Friday, whenever this podcast comes out, I'm spraying some more. That was planted in the middle of April. It's time to go. We are fixing to get after it. We're even going to spray a defoliation trial this afternoon, if Dr Robertson won't push my head through this wall over here. He's had a lot going on and I appreciate him taking time to help me out, but we got a good crowd today. Yep, of course Dr Roberts is here. Hello, sarah, good morning. Sarah's been busy with Dr Roberts. Busy, busy, busy, very busy, very busy, wes. Yep, I'm here here, wes. Why don't you introduce?
Speaker 3your special guest to us. I got a special guest today. My dad's along to uh to help watch my son later this week when we're gonna be out of town. So his name is mark porter and I just told him to tag along this morning. I got a farm visit a little bit after this and some stuff, so you can just kind of come along see what we're doing all right, mr mark you, uh, you told us you know exactly how many deer you've killed in your lifetime.
Speaker 1Let's, let's, tell the folks they, they don't like the deer. Over 300, over 300. So it's making up for wes's sorriness, yeah, just watching them walk by out there in the deer woods. I give wes the what for on the deer because he hunts on a farmer's place. Anything with four legs ought to die in that kind of situation.
Speaker 3I exceeded George's statistics last year. I was not in the 98th percentile.
Speaker 1Man you need to be in, like the less than one percentile man. Come on with the rest of us.
Speaker 3Hey, as long as I can drop when I kill it, as long as I can come drop it off at the gin, it'll get taken care of. That's done. You're going to show up one day. There's going to be 15 deer laying out there.
Equipment Maintenance for Cotton Harvest
Speaker 1That's fine, I'll just push them in a ditch, all right. So we've had a lot going on. I tell you what it feels really good outside this morning, the last two days really, and Wes, I guess we'll kind of get started with you, man, because it rained over the weekend and even, let's see, I guess it was Monday I sprayed Jassets on Monday, all right, and out there at Bowen Farm, I mean, dude, it was still wet, but really I mean it hadn't been real hot or humid or anything like that to kind of burn all this stuff off.
Speaker 3So no, it's two things going on. Right. We've, uh, our temperatures have dropped significantly. I would say. You know, like you said, it's almost, uh, almost, chilly out there. It's down in the upper mid to upper 60s um now, and the highs are right at 90. You know, it also feels humidity's dropped the past day or so. We are calling for rainfall again now. They weren weren't. Now they are over the weekend a little bit more significant chance.
Speaker 3But, camp, to your point, it rained back over the weekend pretty significantly in spots. I'll say I was at our hunting club on Saturday and we did a lot of work. We started at about 830, and at about 430, we were packing up, put up our last stand and, thank goodness, goodness, because it was raining so hard, by the time we got in the truck we were wet, but I couldn't even see the back of my truck. Water was running out of the fields and when we got to the up there there was water standing in the fields everywhere and running out of the fields from the rain friday night, you know. So some bad, some very bad storms came in later in the week, last week, and rained a lot around, and then we've gotten cool.
Speaker 3The other thing that where we're at, if we look at water use on the crop and we go track where we stand, unless you planted in mid-june, you're past peak water use. You know we look at that. That's 10 or 11 weeks after his. Peak is usually from about that 8 or 9th week after planting up until about the 14th 15th week and then our water use is dropping significantly. You get about the 18th week after uh planting. It's exactly where you guys said that uh out and forgot sarah's number.
Speaker 3We said 21 of the crop has bowls opening on. Yeah, yeah, 21. So that means that we're, we're very, very high chance you should be done with irrigation on that and the nice thing to your point. Hey, it's sunny and nice the past couple of days, um, but water use is so low and crop overall has matured far enough in most cases we probably are getting comfortable, we can walk away from irrigation. I know there's caveats out there that we we may not in every situation. You may have missed some of those showers somehow. You may not be there, you may have had to later plant a crop because you just got behind or you had some water that made you wait or you just spread it out either way, but I would say majority of our crop we're probably ready to pull the trigger on and walk away from from the irrigation perspective, unless you're just in a very unique scenario. So keep that in mind. Uh, watch it and see where you're at. I think the next thing you really want to do is start prepping for harvest and I mentioned on the peanut podcast, but I'll mention it here and we've got a training a week from uh a week from today, week from today
Speaker 3actually, yes, wednesday. I don't know why I keep thinking it's tuesday, but it's a week from today for our agents to go through our harvest maturity, defoliation, equipment, setup, etc. So I'll go a little deeper into cotton picker setup that day. But now's a great time. A great time if you're not spraying jacids and I'm not picking on anybody doing that but if you ain't got something else going on, if you can, like this Saturday, for example, when I looked the other day it was 70% chance of rain most of the day. So if you can't get in the field and I will say the field I was in on Saturday- I could barely get my Can-Am Defender around the edge of that field of rain, so much I know you're not getting a sprayer in that field.
Speaker 3Then you got days like that you can't get in. Pull that cotton picker under the shed or in the shop, pull the covers off the head, pull all the shields off and go through it. Unless you did a thorough job of that last year when you parked it for the season, it's time to maintenance that system. There's so many things you want to look through and the simple stuff look at your spindles and check. Just make sure nothing got pulled in or broken, that they're not dull. Check your dolphin pads, because if you've broken spindles or you are, they're dull you're probably your dolphins are worn or rough and there's a lot of other things we could talk about on it, but um and can't. Probably, moving forward, we can hit up on some of the onboard weighing systems and stuff, not quite today, but um, I just say general equipment maintenance right now, greasing them all and having them ready to go, because what's going to happen is when it hits.
Speaker 3We've got uh it hits hard well, we got, and we got a lot of acres of peanuts, and I think that's going to really mess us up when we get kind of misfocused. Yeah, last point with that, though, because we got so many acreages of everything out there, I feel like we're gonna get in an odd scenario, harvesting, uh, peanuts and cotton, and we're gonna be conflicting a lot, and so peanut harvest is slow, and we got to take every opportunity we can to get our cotton out of the field. So again, don't, don't wait, don't say and I even munford said it don't, don't put peanuts at the so top priority that we completely forget about our cotton equipment. Get our cotton equipment ready, have it ready to go and we got those opening days, we got it defoliated. Get out there and do it like a day, like today in three weeks, when y'all's defoliated cotton will be beautiful to go out there low humidity, oh man, cloudless sky.
Speaker 3This is what we're looking for. You know we don't.
Speaker 1You can start a cool day. Hey. If it's below 90 degrees, that's whenever I want to be in the back of the cotton picker. I don't want to do it while philip's texting me. Daughter roberts be texting me from the cab. Says this air conditioning works really good and you got leaves stuck all over your face.
Irrigation Decisions for Maturing Cotton
Speaker 1Yeah, it is a mess back there and he's like the ac works good up here and I'm like man, what the heck you know senior citizen benefit tray said that must be some of those aarp benefits well if you would cut a small hole in that duck right at your head. Yeah, yeah, get ac back there's holes in both sides and but it's still. It's just miserable.
Speaker 2Back there we, we picked cotton on a old, uh, red picker for many years with no air conditioning and, uh, we took more breaks it wasn't necessarily for the crew in the back, it wasn't for the crew in the back. It'd be a hundred and some degrees in that picker.
Speaker 1Lord, but so Wes. A couple things I thought about while you were talking. The first is that I think it was last week I sent. So here's what I did. Yeah, I remember now so my field, I've got a sensor in it and they're doing the app and stuff and trying to to make the app better, which is good in my opinion. And uh, we were out there and it was at 40 percent deficit, yeah, and so I I triggered.
Speaker 1It was thursday and so I said, put an inch on it on thursday and then we're done. We're like we're gonna be done, done, and so they've, they put an inch on it and then it rained an inch and a half and so it goes. So it was real done after that. But I mean it was cutting out and so I said, all right, we're gonna be done now. Then I went over it with the sprayer. It may have been first the last week. I went over it with sprayer. There weren't many open bowls, but then I went back on monday and it was so that that's kind of interesting, all right. And then let's see the other thing I was thinking about. I was texting with a grower last night and he sent me a picture from his cotton picker cab and he was taking it in and he was like I'm getting getting all my spindles and my pads and stuff like that ready to go, so that's what we want to hear right yeah, that's exactly what we want to hear, because I mean we call this the false fall.
Speaker 3But you know you walk around outside right now. It gets you all excited. I was walking through our shop the other day and john paulk always this time of year, since he's been over there, he feels that first cold. He's like let's get some peanuts boiling in here.
Speaker 1I hadn't smelled them yet. Don where they are. Yeah, oh yeah, trey, come to the gin. Yesterday and he was all fired up and I was like it must be this weather like it affects my dog the same way. My dog gets all excited.
Speaker 3I asked about my son jackson on the ride to school in the open jeep this morning. He screamed all so excited you feel the cold air?
Speaker 1oh yeah, like the whole five miles to school, yelling back there. That's so funny.
Speaker 2That is so funny, all right hey hey, speaking of open cotton as I've been traveling, there's cotton ready, yeah.
Speaker 1Yeah, and you know, some of my was going to talk about Dr Roberts I started giving this recommendation about last week. If we want to get out of a bad situation, we need to defoliate this cotton on time, yep, and go get it. That's a good point. Don't wait around on it, don't, yep. You know, I got a call I think it was two weeks ago from Jeremy and he said, oh, he said we've got jacids and he said this cotton's 75% open. And I was like why are you calling me? Like, this cotton needs to be defoliated. You know, don't worry about it. I mean, that's just, we can fix a lot of problems by just knocking the leaves off that crop, you know. And so it's something certainly to think about.
Speaker 1And even yesterday I was talking with Lance and he went and he checked the lateral and he checked 41, and he said the lateral, he said should be ready on Friday. And I said, all right, then it's going to happen on Friday, we're going to spray 41 and the lateral and we're gonna get started ready or not. So it's uh, it's about that time to start thinking about all that kind of stuff. I sent my crew out to tie, tie yesterday to get some get some, uh, defoliant and things like that and get us ready to go, and so we're, uh, it's time to do it, it's time to do it, and it's time to do it and where there's cotton ready, we need to be thinking about it. So, dr Roberts, been a busy two weeks. Man, been a busy more than that. Well, yeah, but it's been two weeks since we did a podcast. It was busy before that, but it's been busy since then. That's right, that's right.
Speaker 1And hey, let's talk about something else other than JAS. I know Y'all you've been talking about is JAS. We can talk about whatever you want to talk about.
Speaker 2Well, first thing on JAS. Jass are not a problem for everybody, but where they are, you know we need to be addressing them.
Plant Bugs and Whiteflies Update
Speaker 2And growers are. Yeah, but I want to talk about two other things. First, and you know we hadn't mentioned a plant bug lately, but, but we still have some areas in the state, primarily on the western side of the state, where we're really fighting plant bugs still, and, uh, I don't think it's as widespread as it was last year, but these problem fields are very problematic and you know what we have with those plant bugs and these problem fields. You just have reproducing populations that are I like to use the term embedded in these fields, and you know you just have to stay on them. Right, it's a battle and you don't want to hear this, but when you're in a very difficult situation, you've got to drop back in maybe five days after you spray to try to break this cycle. And, uh, you know, regardless of what product you use, what we have currently available today, you know that's what it's going to take and, uh, we just can't do it spraying every two weeks. I mean, growers are so accustomed and a lot of their operations match a two-week schedule and I get that. But in these problem fields, the only way you're going to make some progress is to drop in there with a back-to-back on about a five-day interval, yeah, and uh, you know it's just a problem situation and, uh, people who have it. It's unfortunate, yeah, but but again, there are some problem fields.
Speaker 2Also do want to mention white flies. Um, whiteflies have really ticked up and there are several reasons for that. But I mean, it's just August, yeah, and you know these things have been present for a while. I mean, we talked about them on the last podcast but numbers really increased and phone calls have really increased and you know there's there's several things there. We are spraying a lot of harsh chemistry on this jacid. That's not helping the white fly situation right at all. Right, but you know you get to a point where you have to take care of the problem, yeah, and deal with the next problem. But but you know, I think most of our folks are very comfortable with white fly management and you know the the one key factor is be on time, and we've said that 800 times with everything, with everything right, but especially with white flies, especially with white any questions.
Speaker 2Did miss anything on white boss, you know speaking of talking about something other than Jassus.
Speaker 1it was last Monday or Tuesday. I put a load in a sprayer that, I mean, had to have been $100 an acre. Well, because I was going after all kind of stuff. Well, we can't do that on the farm, no you can't do that on the farm.
Speaker 1But I mean, for some reason in this one field the whiteflies had done got out of hand. Yes, the spider mites had done got out of hand, had not sprayed for stink bugs. Yet there you go, it's conventional, so I had to spray worms. Yeah, okay, put a little bit of picks in there. Adds up quick More on Yep and potassium nitrate because it's running out of gas. So but anyway, there's some stuff out there for sure. And even my crew was in that field Maybe it was into this week first to next and they said there's adult whiteflies all over the place. So you know, it's just one of them things.
Speaker 2Again. You just got to watch these things close and when you start seeing those immatures on that fifth leaf, you know it's time to go and get in there and be timely Best way to do it is be proactive.
Speaker 1Proactive Instead of reactive.
Speaker 2Well, we're still reacting.
Speaker 1You're reacting, but In a proactive way, yeah, so what I'm what I'm talking about is don't let it get out of hand, don't let it get out of hand, because what happens when it gets out of hand?
Speaker 2we have to. It gets more expensive, it gets a lot more expensive, and more expensive, it gets a lot more expensive and, um, you know, our the end result is probably not going to be as good if you were timely and uh you know well, because I mean you're probably gonna have to come back twice with something.
Speaker 2Yes, you know you're gonna get it back under. You're gonna have to catch up and then go in with your igr type program. Yeah and uh, but yeah, uh, I mean there's white flies scattered um in a pretty broad geographic area. Yeah, but uh, to my knowledge, where treatments are going out? Uh, and again, it's not terrible, uh, but it's in our little historical areas right right around here, but uh, but anyway, that's enough on plant bugs and whiteflies. Cool weather going to help us on whiteflies? Cool weather will slow their development down and that's a good thing. Yeah, and we talk about cool weather and hey, this is perfect. This is really nice. This is cotton weather to me. I mean, it's not scald and hot, but it's cool at night.
Speaker 3It's cool at night and warm during the daytime it's not so cool that you're on the bottom end of the losing growing degree days yeah, you're not. Well, we're definitely not below 60 degrees right, you know it's not so hot that you're on the upper end of losing the growing degree days, right, but that plant doesn't have to work as hard at night, it's trying to cool down.
Speaker 2Yeah, hey, yep, that late planet still we got. We got some gas in the tank. Yeah, they were the next day at pond. Oh, the next day, yeah, they got a plant happening at work oh yeah, it hadn't been like it ain't burned up all night. Yeah, all right, let's a little bit about the jacet, or the two spotted cotton leaf hoppers, as some folks talk about, about. Everybody wants to talk about it, sarah, would you agree?
Speaker 1Yes, Can you speak into the microphone?
Jassid Management and Thresholds
Speaker 2please. We've been traveling a lot, the ducks have been clacking. The ducks. I don't know what to say. We got you speechless.
Speaker 3No, I got a question for you to get you. Yeah, here we go. Well, we sit here and talk about our crop. Most of our crops progress and we get near maturity. We're talking about the end of the season, but now we've got this pest that's coming in causing damage. When do I make the decision that I can walk away from that field or not? Is it far enough along? Is that a bag? Wait on me? No, wait on me.
Speaker 2We don't know, but we'll talk through it.
Speaker 3Educate a guest. We think we'll get it?
Speaker 2No, so, first and foremost, for all our listeners, we're sending updates out to the county agents and literally we're sending updates out to the county agents and literally recommendations or our thoughts.
Speaker 1When you call it what you want, um, they may change tomorrow, yeah, so I hate to give a lot of specifics because, you know, a week from now it may be different but one of the things, uh, and hey, real, real quick, while we're talking about, the agents have the information, and so the growers have the most up-to-date information, have access to the most up-to-date information yes, so everybody needs to be sure they're on the agent's email list.
Speaker 2Yes, you know somebody, a lot of agents, I mean they. We made a powerpoint presentation last week, I think, and then you know a lot of agents just forwarded that out. Yeah, but when you know when to terminate, and just a little bit about the plant symptoms we're seeing Still today, we see it on edges first. So if you're in a county and that would be well, where they're worst is probably from like Thomas Brooks and head northeast to, yeah, applin Applin Wayne Pierce, yeah, probably from like thomas brooks and head northeast to, yeah, applin applin wayne pierce, yeah. But that.
Speaker 1Uh, pick up coffee, atkinson bacon? I don't know, jeff davis, coffee. You said coffee so.
Speaker 2But in these other areas where you really don't have them, you're gonna see some symptomology on the edges first, and it may only be 10 or 20 feet, but you'll see this yellowing on the outer, uh margin. It it almost looks like potash deficiency. It is so close, yeah, and uh, it looks like you may have got the double dose of herbicide earlier. The plants are yellow, they turn red, they'll turn brown. But if you start seeing injury on the edges, you need to be on high alert and you need to take some time and look at those early symptoms on the edge and as you walk that field you need to be able to recognize it. But you need to flip those leaves over and look for the little confirm, just to confirm it's jacet when you're walking these fields.
Speaker 2I was on the phone with a former student last week and, uh, he was in the field. He says I saw these jacets on the edges, so I'm walking out in the field, he says. He says they're everywhere out here. And I said I just said, well, where are you walking? He says I'm walking on a pivot track. Yeah, well, guess what they really like? They like pivot tracks, they, you know, like uh, so you got to get away from these open canopy areas. If you have a skippy part of a field those two and two skips, two and two skips.
Speaker 2Well, I haven't even looked to see what's happened. Yeah, yeah, we, we created a lot of edges. Yeah, I don't know if andy's seen it yet. He may not. He might not like it. Hey, it's research man. Yeah, yeah, oh yeah, but we created a lot of skips so we can try to get some, some data here on the station. But uh, the other place we're seeing a lot we're talking about before the podcast is on some deer damage plots where y'all simulated the damage, and I've talked to several agents and consultants where they're seeing the same thing yeah, I was walking it a couple of days ago and I saw some of the symptoms.
Speaker 2I said, crap, we're probably going yeah and I really think you know, you know a lot of this deer damage is already canopied up. Good now, but it probably wasn't canopied a couple weeks ago when these things were initially coming in. Yeah, but they like these open areas. But, uh, you know we have a threshold, a suggested threshold. Uh, get with the county agent on that in case it changes. Yeah, we're learning as we go.
Speaker 2How long do we need to protect this cotton west? And that's one of the reasons I started talking about symptoms. You know, I've seen a field go from symptom free to pretty severe in less than three weeks well, actually closer to two weeks. And you know when these leaves start turning yellow, you know just, the capacity for them to function is going down. Yeah, so we're probably Wes going to have to carry this a little farther because we need those leaves to To stay green, to fill the top of those bowls. Now again, do we need to protect this cotton If you have green leaves and you're two weeks from when you could defoliate not when you're going to defoliate, but if you were 60% open? Isn't that our recommendation? Yeah, 60%.
Speaker 1It's good to go, yeah 60%.
Speaker 2If you're two weeks from that time and the leaves are green, you're probably home free. Yeah, if two weeks from that time and the leaves are green, you're probably home free. If they're not green, I'm not so sure. Two weeks prior to 60% open is that 30% open, 20. Somewhere in that neighborhood? It's just going to be a judgment call.
Speaker 2As we learn, there's a lot of options that are providing control. One in particular is being used a lot. It's been pretty consistent. We need alternatives. I mean, abidran has done well, but there are other other options out there and we're getting some feedback from the farm. But all the data we've generated and I need to I'll send another update out either tomorrow or Friday. We've got some 14-day counts since our initial spray, so we'll send that out. But the county agents have all that information and they can get it to you. All you need to do is ask yeah, but an evolving situation? Yeah, and I don't know how many days it's been since July 9th. It's been a month and a half it's been like six or seven weeks you know, yeah, from yeah, somebody was asking yesterday.
Speaker 1They said they were talking to me about some, you know, some folks just get ill, you know, and it's like they they want to be sure that they have the most up-to-date information and I I was like they have been in the loop, everybody's been in the loop since July 9th and I was like July 9th it got found and I said, and since then it's been constant. And of course, one thing that keeps coming up is that, hey, this is changing, this is evolving.
Speaker 2Yeah well, just as an example, this is changing, this is evolving. Yeah well, you know, just as an example we started out. So thresholds in India had, you know, in literature ranged from one to five per leaf. You know, we initially, when we were thinking about making suggestions on what to do, I says well, you know, I don't like to be overly aggressive, maybe we start at five. Well, before we even sent anything to the agents, I had dropped it down to three you and Dr Sally Taylor.
Speaker 2Yes, from Cotton Incorporated. We went from five to three Yep, all right.
Speaker 1Talked to somebody from Pakistan, yep.
Speaker 2And anyway, my colleague at Quincy University of Florida. He's got a trial out. We were doing a regional project on plant bugs but it's turned into a JASA trial and he's making his counts. He's like man, I'm seeing this cotton yellow and I'm at two, like 2.1 per leaf. So now I said, well, I don't want it to see it yellow. So we dropped down to two and more information, the most current information. In Pakistan they're using one to two, but right now we're sitting on two. But we might go to one to two. But in these areas where there's a lot last couple of days I'm getting questions about re-infestation. Yeah, but pictures from people's high boys with even camp. You sent me one.
Speaker 1I was going to say who sent you.
Speaker 2One of them, sarah, was riding on our plot sprayer the other day and she was covered in jassets, it's easier to see the green on a red sprayer than it is on a green sprayer?
Speaker 1Yeah, because I was driving a green sprayer and I was taking pictures and I I sent them to philip and I said I said how many jacets can you see? And he said it's really hard to see all these green books on a green sprayer.
Speaker 2But hey, we're, we're hanging in there and, uh, it's not something we anticipated, to be honest with you. Yeah, uh, you know we had briefly mentioned it at the uh annual meeting. God had briefly mentioned it at the annual meeting. God, mid-year meeting no, at the annual meeting, oh yeah that's right.
Speaker 2I forgot about that I did just like hey, this was in Florida. Yeah, I forgot about that. And then we talked about it at the mid-year meeting. And when was that? Like the middle of July, that was July 23rd and like you know, do we talk about it?
Speaker 1and finally, I'm like we got to talk about it, uh-huh and holy moly. I told somebody and I mean I ain't trying to put you on the spot, but I told somebody he stood up there in front of god and everybody and said I don't think this is gonna be a problem in 2025. I was just trying to stay calm, you know, and here we are, but it's just, it is what it is. You know, we didn't think it was gonna be a problem. Yeah, but it is just, it is what it is. You know, we didn't think it was going to be a problem, yeah, but it is, it is, and so it is just got to deal with it and uh, you know why is it a problem where it is?
Speaker 2and thinking, you know, I've been thinking about that. I had a revelation yesterday, did you really? Yeah, I was praying some last night yesterday afternoon.
Speaker 1Just thinking, doing all your thinking, this thing follows the path of Helene. Really.
Speaker 2It's on the eastern side because it's run up. So just for our listeners, you know this thing is found a few counties in southeast Alabama and we're basically all the coast of Plain, I mean in Georgia, and it ran up through South Carolina. Florida, georgia, south Carolina yeah, but the worst of it is in east Georgia Is east Georgia and it's the eastern side of the track.
Speaker 1But I mean that makes so much sense because, hey, we're speculating, I know that's so interesting, but we've talked about it from day one. Me and you we kept going.
Speaker 2Why Appling County?
Speaker 1Yeah, because I mean Will Brown found them over there and then the I mean I hope I'm not saying too much the first field got sprayed in Appling County, in Appling County and then it was like all right, coffey County, appling County, wayne County, and we're like why? I mean it was just like out of nowhere you would have thought that, being as close to Quincy or wherever, that it's like okay, this would be a problem in Seminole Decatur, which I mean it has kind of there's there Brooks and stuff like that.
Patterns of Jassid Spread and Impact
Speaker 1But I mean it's like but Brooks was also kind of on the edge of Helene and then it's on the eastern edge because you know it was coming straight towards Tifton. And then it turned east and it went to douglas and east georgia. That's fascinating. It's the eastern side. Yeah, that's very interesting that is very, that's just speculation.
Speaker 2Anybody got any thoughts? Say that's just thoughts, but uh, hey, we're dealing with it you know we could also say where we've had plant boat problems. We probably have been knocking these things down and didn't know it. But if you're I kind of put yeah, I'm leaning and I don't guess it matters, no, but it's just interesting.
Speaker 1Well, that's what I thought something else that we've talked about. If it's okay that I mentioned this, is that if you're looking and you have suspicions on this, check some of your older cotton yeah, it's been.
Speaker 2Really it's all weird, it's very weird, it's almost uh, it's all. I don't know what it is. I don't know if, when balloons are in the top or you start opening bowls.
Speaker 1I've. I mean we, we were talking about it on monday afternoon late I just because there was there's a field here in tifton that they were on the edges and I saw, you know, and I was like, okay, I was making a trip over the field, so I was trying to make the decision and I said I'm going to wait. Yep, okay, now bowls are opening, which it could just be a time thing. Right, they were in, they were in the field and they could have just built. But they, they are now at a level where it's like, all right, we may have to do something, but bowls are opening now.
Speaker 2Yeah, but again that's where we've seen it primarily, from the start has been on the older cotton and we'll have to see how this plays out. But these things turn a generation in two weeks, so the population they're kind of like white lies.
Speaker 1It's very similar to white lies.
Speaker 2They can increase real quick. Maybe they're kind of like white. It's very similar to why they can increase real quick. You know, maybe they're there, maybe they just need enough time to to build. So they're very obvious. You know there's a lot of questions here. Yeah, you know, and I think I said it last week. You know we got a lot of questions on this insect. You know we've got a lot of answers.
Speaker 1Well, yeah, well that actually hey I've done a really good job.
Speaker 2You and and isaac and jeremy, like scott, yeah I mean, hey, you know the entomologists in southeast, we work so closely together. I've talked to isaac, my colleague, and quincy multiple times a week, same thing with scott, same thing with jeremy scott at auburn, jeremy at clemson, and uh, you know, that helps everybody right. First thing we have to do is figure out how to kill it. We can kill it. Yeah, need more options to kill it. Need more options to kill it. I mean, we've got there, we've got options. We need economical options, yeah, um, next thing we have to figure out is does it matter? Yeah, so, trying to get yield data and you know that sounds so simple, yeah, but it's complicated some. Yeah, and then we'll try to really refine it.
Speaker 1But hey, lee Hidson, come through down there in Adipol. Yeah, we did, we sprayed in Adipolgus on Monday?
Speaker 2Yep, that'll be interesting, because we sprayed a dry land test and an irrigated test, and so we'll rate that Friday. I think it's on the schedule, sarah, and Sarah schedules everything, yep, and then I change everything.
Speaker 3You yeah.
Speaker 1Really Not everything I had no idea you would do. Stuff just comes up, I understand, like today, today, not everything I had no idea you would. Stuff just comes up, hey, I understand, like today, today, spraying a defoliation trial for a ding dong well, we were going to go to planes and spray at planes.
Speaker 2We've got a stink bug test on the edge of some peanuts and sarah was up there last week tell me about it. Yeah, yeah, it was really incredible. A lot of stink bugs.
Speaker 1We did, whenever we did, drops out there. What did you have? Eight, well eight, on a drop.
Speaker 3Some plots we were getting like 15 to 20.
Speaker 2Dang 15 to 20 stink bugs on one drop. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 3Not in every treatment.
Speaker 2Now, that's on the edge of peanuts, right? We're putting pressure, you won't? We're putting extreme pressure on a product to see how good it is? Yeah, and it's got it. It's got extreme pressure. Oh, it's got pressure. Yeah, for sure. I don't think we've looked at what we got. Yeah. Yeah, that may be a couple weeks.
Speaker 1We've got other things that's like more important than summarizing that uh, yeah, well, I last week we went out and checked, uh, bowen, for the, for the jacid, and we found it. And it's like you brought, brought up 15 to 20 stink bugs on a drive and sit here thinking say, oh, you missed that. And so I'm sitting there with my crew. Last week and I signed for those that don't listen to the podcast, real regular I signed my whole crew. Each one of them got a farm and so they're supposed to tell me what to do and what to spray and do all this stuff. Last week I took them out to bowen and we found jacids and I looked at the one that that, uh, that farm was assigned to. I said, if you were a scout you'd be fired. So, hey, it is what it is.
Speaker 1Yeah, so we, uh, we're learning, uh, hey, defoliation timing 60 open or four note above crack bowl. It's like I said earlier. I mean I'm getting calls from agents too that are like, well, what do we do with the jacet and whatever? It's like, hey, if the crop is ready, to foliate it and then you can get out of this fight right here. So, and I mean, I know that these guys in west brought it up peanuts. I understand but like if you got a problem and you're trying to get out of it, that's the easiest way to do. It is to foliate that crop and pick it and get it to the gym we can't afford to let it sit out there through weather.
Speaker 3I can tell you right now some studies I've looked at across my time, some studies some colleagues here looked at. The longer that cotton sits in the field open, you're watching your fiber quality go down, down, down your your trash contents go up because those stalks are going to get brittle if there's any leaves or anything stuck regrowth like any of that yeah.
Speaker 3So the more timely you can be and I know speaking to the choir on it, but the more timely you can be after defoliation, get it out as soon as possible. Let's, when you're looking at 60 something cent cotton. We can't afford discounts no, it was that.
Upcoming Field Days and Final Notes
Speaker 1Yeah, no, no, and people don't like discounts anyways, price don't matter, right? So, um, at the end of the day, be timely with defoliation. Uh, I know a lot of guys don't don't necessarily like to pull the trigger, or don't pull the trigger at 60 open, but in a year like this one, we may need to be a little more timely with that application. So keep all these things in mind. Hey, real quick, let's see. Wednesday, september 3rd field day in tifton.
Speaker 1Come see us, we're gonna be here, so start at the lane, yeah, lane farm yeah, lane farm, and then what day is that one in in watkinsville the 23rd, 23rd of september, in watkinsville starting. Me and wes will be there. We'll be there, for For sure, we're going to talk about bugs.
Speaker 2Yeah, y'all talk about bugs for me, yeah we'll talk about bugs for Dr Roberts.
Speaker 1Dr Roberts has got to go stick up for us at the boll weevil meeting, so he's going.
Speaker 2Hey, that's still so important it is.
Speaker 1Hey, if you didn't listen to it Cotton Specialist Corner. That was a of my favorite episodes we've done so far. All right, well, if y'all have any questions, reach out to your county agent, thank you. 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 major podcast platforms. Be sure to like, share with your friends and subscribe so you can stay up to date.
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