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
When Fields Turn Yellow: The Critical Timing of Cotton Harvest
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A critical transition point has arrived for Georgia cotton producers as this year's crop races toward harvest readiness. With 51% of bolls already opening—well ahead of the five-year average—growers face important decisions about defoliation timing, irrigation termination, and pest management that will impact both yield and quality.
The UGA Cotton Team dives into the unusual weather patterns affecting this year's crop, including September's surprisingly dry conditions that have necessitated more irrigation than typical for this time of year. For late-planted cotton approaching cutout, specialists recommend careful assessment of soil moisture before making irrigation termination decisions, as one final watering may prevent yield losses in fields with inadequate moisture reserves.
A significant focus of this episode centers on the emerging cotton jassid challenge and its potential impact on defoliation effectiveness. Dramatic field observations reveal stark differences between treated and untreated areas, with untreated cotton showing concerning red leaf symptoms that could compromise harvest preparation if not addressed promptly. The team emphasizes defoliating jassid-affected fields while leaves are still green or red, as waiting until they turn brown may create serious harvest quality issues.
Regional variations in boll rot present another management consideration, with middle and east Georgia experiencing significantly higher incidence than the Tifton area. This pattern appears linked to August's rainfall distribution and cloud cover, demonstrating how microclimates within the state can dramatically affect cotton development and quality.
Safety concerns take center stage as harvest approaches, with detailed discussions about cotton picker hazards, maintenance requirements, and operator vigilance. The team stresses the importance of appropriate harvest timing based on humidity conditions rather than pushing for extended operating hours that increase accident risks.
Perhaps most concerning for Georgia agriculture's future is the shifting crop balance, with cotton acreage falling to its lowest level since 1993 and being surpassed by peanuts. This disruption to traditional rotation patterns threatens the equilibrium that helps manage pests, diseases, and soil health across the state's farming systems.
Want to make better harvest preparation decisions? Connect with your local UGA Extension agent for field-specific recommendations on defoliation timing, pest management strategies, and irrigation decisions tailored to your situation.
Podcast Introduction and Weather Update
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 Wednesday, september 10th. Man, the weather's been beautiful this week. It's been really cool in the mornings, not blazing hot in the afternoons. This Saturday, deer season opens and I am fired up. I am so excited about it. I've been looking at pictures. I got all kind of does on camera.
Speaker 2There you go, that's great, I'm going to let an arrow fly at something if it can walk by. That's the way I am, I told.
Speaker 1Trey, I said the first. Doe that walks out is getting an arrow flung, even if it's got spots.
Speaker 3Well, don't do that.
Speaker 2Well, that's the only problem. Right them spots are for something.
Speaker 1You know what they're for, so it's camouflage. No, they're for aiming.
Speaker 2We got like six bucks in our backyard. If you want to come get one, well, that's where all the bucks are, because in the spot I'm not going to sneak in there.
Speaker 1I don't care enough, but I hunt a spot just north of y'all and I don't have any bucks on camera. That's where they are. I had the strangest picture.
Speaker 2Series of pictures. Other day, um, I had two decent bucks with a spotted phone following them around like that was no dough and I was like what is going on? And it was like happened a couple times, not not one instance. I was like I guess they adopted this phone my car and I got it could be so if I see a spot on, I might get excited that the two daddies are coming to follow down.
Speaker 1Yeah, that's true. Well, you get excited If a doe walks in. You're like, okay, there's something with her, Hopefully.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Crop Progress Report and Harvest Timing
Speaker 1Oh yeah, so I'm not like that. If a doe walks out I'm going to shoot her. So a county agent told me week, but I'm starting off strong today. So we did good, um, all right, crop progress report for the weekend in November 7th I believe it were September 7th, that's all right, okay. Uh, the weekend in September 7th we have 99 percent of the Georgia crop is setting bowls, which is good, that's good. Yeah, our late crop is, uh, is kind of moving. But the thing that's kind of got my attention and I've started talking a little bit more about is the percent of our crop that has bowls opening. Yep, and uh, the five-year average is 38, but this year the crop progress report has us at 51.
Speaker 1So this, uh, this crop is moving fast and uh, we did some agent trainings over the past week west, and and that's one thing I tried to stress to them is we have got to get out there and look at this stuff and uh, yes, I mean a lot of it's gonna be ready before we are, and muffert is good about saying it whenever, it's true, but it looks like some of these peanuts are dragging a little bit.
Speaker 1They're they're a little bit behind, and so there's a little. There's an opportunity there to go out and defoliate some of this cotton that's ready and go on and get it done. I mean, if you, if you take some peanuts up to your county agent and they lay them out on the board and tell you they're three weeks off, and I'd go load a sprayer up and spray some cotton and then it can be harvested by the time you dig those peanuts. So I uh, you know we're, we're starting to think a little bit more about some things like that. Of course, some of this cooler weather may slow it down just a hair, but even towards the end of the week and first part of next, I mean it's gonna get back up close to 90, supposed to be 88, uh 89.
Speaker 2Saturday, sunday again back warm, gonna push it, but the low is 59 on saturday. I'm looking forward to that. You'll go back to home.
Speaker 1That's 39, but still but still, I bring that up not for the hunting side of it, even though I am excited about that, but, um, I mean that's the first day that we're dipping below 60 and I mean that's that's kind of where growth stops for for a cotton plant. So, um, of course it's going to crank back up the next day whenever it gets above 60 degrees, but it's just, it's interesting that we're kind of hitting this cool spell, uh, right now. But I mean it's really, really good cotton weather, though. I mean those temperatures in the 80s, this low humidity.
Boll Rot Issues Across Georgia
Speaker 1We've got something else that I've been seeing west and I and and uh talking to folks about. I was in well, we were both in midville on monday and then I went to cordial uh that afternoon and I was talking to some growers there and even looking in Midville. There there's some rot out there and but I'm not seeing it here in Tifton, which is good for us. But I mean, in Dooley County those guys were talking about, you know, a third of their crop is rotted, which is normally what we would see around here. And then over in Midville I saw more than I normally do and a lot of that, I think, can be attributed to the month of August, where it was so overcast and rainy I would say, if you look back and I don't have hard data, I mean I can pull hard data.
Speaker 2I don't have it sitting in front of me to show this. But if you look back during that time, kemp, you remember in the summer Lake Blackshear is an hour north of us, it's right there at Cordele. I notice all the time storms form right there around Americas, move across north. We miss them and East Georgia kept catching rain over that way during that time and we missed a lot of that. It was like the way that front I don't know what was happening at the time we were pulling moisture up, they were creating over there, they were hitting north of us and we were't get all that rain. Yeah, god helped attribute to some of that bull rot.
Speaker 1Well, because I, me and Sarah picked some cotton last week.
Speaker 2Oh, wow.
Speaker 1Yep, we did, we did. And I was amazed because I mean some of that stuff was planted early, like real early, and you drive a picker through and I mean you can see everything from picker seed or sprayer seed or whatever. But I mean you can see everything from picker seed or sprayer seed or whatever, but I mean there was hardly any rot in it and it was planted April 1st and April 15th is what we picked the other day. How did it yield? Hey, the April 1st stuff averaged 1,400 pounds.
Speaker 2Oh right, April 15th averaged right around 1,100 or 1,200. Okay, two and a half l to three l and dry land.
Speaker 1I think it had one watering, I think just one.
Speaker 2So I mean it was that's not bad, that's not bad at all.
Speaker 1But you know, again, I did talk to a grower who planted a similar variety in the same time frame, march 30th, up there in middle Georgia last weekend. He told me his looks good. But you know, I want to go back and say that the reason that it made so good was because we didn't rot anything. Normally, if we plant cotton on april 1st, we expect to rot half of it, you know, and, and for some reason in tifton we miss that, and so, um, that's part of the reason that cotton's so good and we have some more. That was planted April 15th that I defoliated last week, wasn't it? Yeah, it was last Tuesday and, yeah, that's right, I defoliated that last Tuesday and there's hardly any rod in that either. So very, very interesting observations, just to see that that's in different parts of the state that we normally don't expect it in. So it is certainly interesting. And, uh, wes, I got a question this morning from uh mr will cox over at the ponder farm.
Speaker 1We planted that cotton on june 11th. I sprayed it last week for everything jacids, white flies, stink bugs, you name it. I sprayed it and, uh, water it, hey. So he was asking. That's what he was asking. We were we're. We were close to cut out last week and and it wasn't opening, but I hadn't put eyes on it. And I mean it's low humidity, low temperature, stuff like that on some of this late cotton, like what. What do you think about that?
Late-Season Irrigation Decisions
Speaker 2yeah, I'm glad you brought that up because I want to talk about that today.
Speaker 2We've got it's getting dry uh, we got a trial down at Stripling that we late planted about the same date. I'd have to look back. We're June 10th, 11th somewhere in there, and we've irrigated it the past three days, different treatments, really Not the same One of them actually the same treatment was two days in a row, so that tells had yesterday and the low humidity pulled a lot of our moisture out. But we've been irrigating different treatments and we've got different treatment thresholds in there. We've got some we're pushing to dry or some we're pushing keeping wet, et cetera. So don't take it that we're just irrigating every treatment every day, but we've had to trigger irrigation every day on that trial this week and that's kind of new. That trial is sitting this week.
Speaker 2Sarah Beth looked at it last week in her talk we talked about the data. I think she's in about the fifth week of bloom, maybe the sixth week. Yeah, give or take somewhere in there. So we're getting towards the end, but guess what that's? That's right at or just over the peak water use period. Yeah, and we've and I'm being guilty of this, I've made a lot of comments and and pushed a lot of people just like terminate, terminate, terminate, without guess, without really going back and visiting this topic. We're visiting right now that late planted cotton and we've probably got a good bit of late planted cotton out there. I can't remember our distribution when we did our earlier podcast, but I'm assuming 25%.
Speaker 1I think it's normally 20 or 25%, yeah, and so we're.
Speaker 2We've turned dry, and I looked at the long-term forecast this morning and we have nothing predicted in the near future. And so, with the temperatures getting back up to 90 degrees this weekend, our humidity staying this morning Camp, our humidity when I left the house, according to Weather Channel, was 78%, which is rare.
Speaker 1The grass yeah, yeah, I mean that's high. I mean from what I've been seeing the last few days. I mean I walked through my yard yard the other day and my shoes didn't even get wet. That's what I mean.
Speaker 2First thing in the morning when we're getting up in the mornings and we're not having dew on stuff, that tells me we're moving a lot of moisture out. Yeah, and not dew doesn't replenish it, but dew slows that evaporation right in the mornings, right, and we don't have that right now. And so you really need to keep in mind that, and we'll go and talk on Friday about peanuts. Our peanuts have been like water, water, water. Even though we feel like we're at the. Those were normal, planted in May and they're like dude, you ought to be getting close.
Speaker 2This is one of the first years that I can remember in my recent history that we've had to do this much irrigation in the month of September, this much irrigation in the month of september. How about that? Yeah, so I guess I want to put that out there that if you're at camp, let's go back to what, uh, what? We'll ask you, I would go. Not that he can't do a good job of it himself, he's probably got it, but I go, look at that cotton, see where you're at. Um, even if you've got a bowl cracked, I know that the probably gave it one. Good, that's what I was thinking. I would give it a good shot. Because here's the caveat, if any of you read the newsletter article that I just wrote and use the link at the bottom to go, to that blog.
Speaker 1If somebody will put it together, go ahead. I didn't say that I needed another day to get it to you.
Speaker 2I needed another day. I'm glad you put it together. I needed that. We've been on the road this week. Well, when you get it, you can look at the blog post too. It's a little more in-depth. We are pushing a lot of information that says terminated cutout. We're starting to push that because John Snyder I'm not going to take all the credit, but on my request years ago we were getting a lot of questions about man. I think we're not terminating right. So he did an excellent job, as our research counterparts do, at pulling together a really good study and continuing study of looking at the termination dates on cotton, and his data are showing that we should be terminating closer to cut out, not 10 open bowl, yeah, right. So we're working really hard on that and showing more data and getting it out there. So the caveat to that is we have to be at basically full profile or an adequate moisture. We're not at adequate moisture right now.
Speaker 2I walked, uh in a peanut field yesterday and we did not walk in the cotton field beside him. He uh, because it'd been sprayed with uh modern. Yeah, sure, yep, yep, we will get to that later. And so we walked in the peanut field and turned on the pivot. When I was down there and I dug down two to three, almost four inches before I found any moisture, oh wow, and I was like, and he asked me how much? And he, this particular system. He, we agreed upon two, four. He turned it on four tenths of an inch and just let it do two rotations. We stopped it, which was a good idea. So it's still running today. Um, right now, in the time it took, and that's I think that you know, if that were a cotton field, I would have told him to do that and then potentially walk away from it after that that's what, yeah.
Speaker 1So I got a call from jeff cook yesterday and it was a similar situation it's cutting out but it's not quite opening yet. And he was like we've got decent moisture, and so I told him I was like, hey, I'd do one more and I'd be done.
Speaker 2I do if, if if the long-term forecast said, hey, this front's moving in on saturday with that heat and there's a storm coming with it and you're going to get rain, I would say wait three more days, yeah, yeah, that's not the case. No, you're wrong. I think you've got to irrigate it. I think, or this is when we're going to see yield reduction due to lack of ball development because we don't have the moisture. If it's dried like this, if you hadn't seen, you know we've talked about seeing bull rot already, but in these conditions are not conducive to bull rot, right, when we got to low humidities. What bob's always told me, um, to look for when we're causing bull rot is when we walk through the cotton field in the mornings. If our pants are green, we come out of that field. There's enough that the conditions are perfect for diseases, right?
Speaker 2and right now that's not going to be the case because we just said there's no dew sitting out there. Your leaf wetness period is the other thing you have to consider and right now there's theoretically very little to no leaf wetness period. So you're not extending it with irrigation. And the last thing to talk about is, even if you've got some of those bowls that are starting to, all those bracts are starting to separate. You can start to see that white fiber show out or a couple bowls that are opened up, the moisture you're putting on with irrigation.
Speaker 2If we were 100 humidity and that oppressive feel out there, we would cause that fiber to degrade more because it's sitting there, wet, yeah, almost rotting, but we don't have that condition either. That right fiber. If we let's say that we turned our system on right now y'all don't know when y'all listen to podcasts it's 8 40 in the morning and we turned on at 8 40 in the morning. The minute it gets off of that that bowl, I'm guessing before noon today that bowl's gonna be completely dry. You can go out and pop it fully open, reach down in that fiber and you're not gonna find moisture anymore because by noon today it's gonna be 50 or less humidity, yeah, and if the wind's moving. I don't see it moving out there hard right now, but yesterday afternoon it was moving.
Speaker 1It was like 15 20 mile an hour ago yesterday morning I was defoliating cotton, so hopefully it wasn't blowing. Oh no, it wasn't. I was ready to defoliate. That was the only day I could do it.
Speaker 2Yeah, you had to get out there getting after it. Yeah, so this is a you? I hope I don't think it is because our temperatures are not quite there. This is panning out to be a year closer to what we had in 2019. When we got really dry in the fall 19, it smoked us because we were 100 degrees. Right, you know, it was miserable hot, but it was low humidity and there's a lot, of, a lot of things that shouldn't happen. That happened in 19, but one thing that should have happened is we had to stay on top of irrigation in normal and late planted cotton, especially in that year. Yeah.
Cotton Picker Safety Concerns
Speaker 1So, yeah, there's a, yeah, it's a case by case, I mean you know, and, and one thing that I've tried to start stressing to people, is like these recommendations are developed to fit everybody.
Speaker 2Yep, right, and so it's an average across the entire state, right, but you walk into an individual field, it's like, all right, we may have to tailor something to this so let's go back to north of here, over in midville and this is what I hope all you guys listening do I make a recommendation on where it's at and you take it and say, all right, he said this. But this is my case. If you're very, very questioning, call your agent and then, if your agent needs it, he's going to call me and then we're going to all three get on the phone and talk about it and figure it out. Or you say Wes said this. This is on that and it makes sense because x, y and z, if I'm in midville today, up there with wade and anthony looking at one of the trials and saying when do I shut the water off?
Speaker 2And I have truly rotted the bottom third of my plant, I know I'm not harvesting those bowls. I'm going to pretend like those bowls are not there because I don't want them harvested, they're not going to come in, and then I'm going to retreat that plant like those don't exist and I'm going to follow and try to track it over the next few weeks and manage my irrigation accordingly. And I'm assuming camp's going to manage your defoliation accordingly, that we can try to finish out those couple of bowls up up top. The problem is those bowls up top are smaller. We are cooling off into the 50s at night. There's a lower chance that we're truly going to finish those off to what the bottom bowls were. So are the inputs going to be the same as what they were when we had large, normal distributed bowls across the plant? No, but we don't. We don't give up on it. At the same time, we don't want to um, we don't want to treat it like it's going to finish it out like we had that bottom third right right.
Speaker 1So it's, uh, it's a case-by-case thing, but certainly, uh, the irrigation termination needs to be front of mind for some of this late planting cotton and um making that decision and and kind of moving from there. What about, uh um harvest prep?
Speaker 2yeah.
Speaker 2So, um, safety, yeah, we got it. We're getting our machines out. Um, depending on what you're running, we still have a few module builders out there. I'm probably probably 30. I would say give or take our basket pickers now, um, you know, you've got a couple guys running moving those systems around. Uh, just be careful with those. I was trying to remember I feel like there was something that happened with a module builder last year and I can't remember what it was, but that's big equipment we're moving up and down the roads first.
Speaker 2Second, we recorded a podcast in East Georgia on Monday of this week. That was two days ago. That feels like a long week already. But about this and those are big machines they probably have sit since last year. One you need to do some general maintenance. We don't have time right now on the podcast to go through all of that. Go through your general maintenance on it. Biggest thing you need to check is the system's operating correctly, that all your spindles are in good shape, your doffers, your moisture pads and all the stuff in your head's in good shape. But when we get out working on the farm and we start pulling plants up accidentally with those heads or we have incidences where we got fiber that needs to go in the front or something like that or we got somebody that's out. Whatever reason, we're done an on-farm trial or whatever, walking around that machine. Extreme caution when we're moving around that system.
Speaker 2The driver is hard to see. For him to see the back of the machine. He's got blind spots on the sides of the machine. If you're walking, I think one thing we don't think about a lot. But those machines turn from the rear right. That's my turning tire. So if you're walking down beside it on a row as a collaborator watching him pick or something, he goes to turn to the right and you're on the left side of the machine where you're about to get run over and he may not even know you're standing right there, you're gonna be in a blind spot and if you're behind him and he needs to back up, he can't see you.
Speaker 2Usually, um, if you're at the head of the machine, be sure that you see that his hands are not on contact of anything operating in that machine. You know there's a lot of things to think about there. We never even talk about, um, fire and stuff on the machines, but that's things that are very critical. You know, monitoring systems and if, if, whatever reason, we get a choke point in there and overheating that fiber, um, stuff like that, there's a lot of things we could talk about. I think that would be my worry, moving into the conditions that we have now, is that we have drier cotton than normal. I want to stick, and, uh, when the humidity gets low any of you jenner's know this low humidity means high static electricity means a fiber doesn't flow as well as it does, um, when a normal, uh, humid condition, and so keep that in mind too when we're starting to harvest. Yeah, and just, you know, be a little more vigilant about watching the back of your machines and stuff like that.
Speaker 1Yeah, I mean, I think safety is critical. I don't, personally I'm not, a big fan of cotton pickers. They're dangerous, they are. I don't like them. And people get hurt all the time, and it's just, you know. And that's not even talking about moving them up and down the road, that's just talking about being around them, you know. But moving those machines, moving sprayers up and down the road, I mean we need to be careful and I hate that we have to bear the burden for some of that because there's just idiots out there.
Speaker 2And you know, I think, on a cotton picker.
Speaker 1the problem is no better way to say it. I mean, you know, I mean I think on a cotton picker. The problem is no better way to say it. I mean, I'm tired. There's no other words that are coming to my mind. I could say some other words, but then I'd have to check that little box when I upload this episode, so I'm not going to do that.
Speaker 2He censored that for you guys. What idiots. The problem with a cotton picker, I think, is that, unlike a grain combine, or even hay equipment and stuff a grain combine, when we're harvesting especially if we're doing like soybean weed or some harvest it is very easy to see the blade on the front of that machine right there, yeah, a cotton picker is like oh, we got those big yellow plastic shields right there and the spindles are way back inside of there you know you gotta like lean over.
Speaker 1If you're driving one, you gotta lean over to check that, check that the spindles are spinning and stuff like and the heads are turning and engaged and the dangerous parts are kind of hidden on that machine and so we get a false sense of security.
Speaker 2I guess I would say, and that is a such an intricate machine with so much horsepower and so much, to me it's daunting to go look at one and all the mechanical parts that are moving inside of there, yeah, and I mean all those spindles are little drill bits running around through there, you know, and that machine's heavy, there's just a lot of things going on. We could talk about it all day. But guys, be careful, be smart. You know, theoretically, on cotton harvest, you should not be running some of the long days we talk about because, yeah, yeah, we probably shouldn't be starting depend on humidity much before 10 am in the morning, unless it's just a really you get.
Speaker 1The thing is you got to get out there and get it cleaned up. You got to clean it and service it.
Speaker 2That's right service at first. Every time I've ever spent time with good operators, the first two hours of the day are from eight to ten and then we're starting to pick.
Defoliation Strategies and Jassid Observations
Speaker 2You know, mid to late morning, even depending if it's a wetter day or a humider day, it may be lunch or after, yeah, but then when the dew starts to fall at night, we need to talk about shutting that machine down. So we shouldn't be running them all night. I guess my point we shouldn't be. Uh, it shouldn't be the case that you're like well, I've been up for 14 hours running this machine and you know I only slept three hours. I'm back at it at six in the morning.
Speaker 1I know that we got a lot going on, but you know, try to avoid those, those sleepless mistakes and stuff like that too, because well, and I mean I've, I've made some like that I went, uh, I picked some a couple years ago and I mean, it was just one of those days where nothing was going right and I was like, by god, we're gonna be done today, like we're just gonna be done.
Speaker 1And so we got to the last study we were on.
Speaker 1It was, of course, after after five o'clock and everybody should have gone home, but I asked everybody to stay because I wanted to be done and I mean, well, I pulled up a stalk and it got stuck in the head and so I opened the door on the side and I'm kicking the bars trying to get it, you know, to push it back out, and I didn't realize it at the time, but a spindle poked through like the sole of my boot and got it, got my foot, and it was like I didn't realize it until I got home and I took my sock off and I was like holy cow, like that thing made it through my shoe and like stabbed me in the foot, you know, and it's like, of course, that's a minor injury compared to what can actually happen, right, but still, it's just like you know, you get frustrated, you get ill and you start doing stuff and it's like it's probably not the best decision at the time, you know, and it's like you just want.
Speaker 1I'll just get in those moods where it's like I just want to be done I'm just ready to be done.
Speaker 2Well, and I would say and I'm we're probably belaying this a little bit, I've got to be somewhere at nine, so about 12, 15 minutes. But in a year like this, where we are already frustrated about that and with a lot of things, yeah, and we could list those, take us 10 minutes to list all those frustrations off. But a lot of things, don't let the frustrations that harvest push it to something like that. Yeah, and that's easier said than done right. Right, that's easier said than done right.
Speaker 1So yeah, but kind of back to uh the weather and stuff. Like I mean this is perfect defoliation weather to me. I mean we we've been defoliating some stuff here on the station and started on big, big areas last week, probably sprayed 15 acres last week and then another 30 yesterday, so but you know it's time to start thinking about that. I've been doing some meetings and stuff like that and it just I've gotten some good questions about just general defoliation. There's one guy who, uh, who sprayed genstar last year and didn't have good luck with it, and so we kind of talked about that and he uh I think he was using a little too high of a rate for the time of year he was spraying in and and so we kind of talked about dialing that back a little bit.
Speaker 1And that's a product that um generally I think it does better in cooler weather. Uh, and part of that is because of the amount of thiodiazeron in the product. It doesn't have as much to help us with our regrowth control like we need uh this early, and so you kind of switch to that one late in the year because you don't need the regrowth control um and suppression. So that's a that's a good product to kind of switch to that one late in the year because you don't need the regrowth control and suppression. So that's a good product to kind of look at in my opinion, as it gets a little bit later and we'll kind of increase rates on some of that. But some of the things that I'm seeing out there and I sent Sarah some pictures yesterday, I mean I was on sprayer yesterday and this thing has done got my attention. Now I mean I know that it it like y'all been looking at it yeah, and those pictures were really eye-opening and I mean it's just, you know, kind of seeing it, because I talked to dr roberts.
Speaker 1Of course I know I didn't introduce everybody to hey, we got wes everybody's heard from.
Speaker 2Jeremy said he'll call in if you want to put him on. We're adding a special guest. That's what happens if you call us during the podcast. You get to get to jump on and add on with us hello, hey, jeremy, how are you?
Speaker 1I'm doing well. Hey, this is jerry. I think this is jeremy's first time on a podcast no, he was on the peanut.
Speaker 2When I think, on the cotton podcast, is this your first time on the cotton one, jeremy yes, this is the first time I've been.
Speaker 3I've been invited to be on the the cotton podcast all right.
Speaker 1So, jeremy, let me, let me, uh, let me finish my thought, while while I was so rudely interrupted by wes and you, so, um, but anyways, I, I was, uh, it was a few weeks ago, it was two or three weeks ago. I talked to dr roberts, who's not here today, but Sarah's here in his stead. She's always here. So it was two or three weeks ago. I went and sprayed the bowling farm for Jassad and Dr Roberts asked me to spray half of it and I was like, on this side of the road spray and on this side of the road don't, and I said, okay, that's fine, of the road spray, and on this side of the road don't. And I said, okay, like that's fine.
Speaker 1So I went and I sprayed a product that had been tested by you guys and recommended by you guys on time one to two jassets per leaf and I sprayed it and then I came on home, all right, we were pretty close to defoliation, in my opinion, and I was like, okay, we may not see anything, I don't know. Yesterday I mixed up a load of defoliant and it was wild. I mean, it was just absolutely wild.
Speaker 2It was like you sprayed defoliant a week ago.
Speaker 1Yeah, oh, man, on the stuff that was not treated. That's a big difference and it's just a field road that was separating them. I'm on Twitter or X. By the way, I posted those pictures on X. That's the reason I say that it's you. I did.
Speaker 2Do you have a?
Speaker 1strong presence on X. Oh yeah, he's got six followers.
Speaker 3Wow.
Speaker 1No man, I've got over a thousand followers. What are you talking about? Hey, followers, hey did the word. I'm getting the word out. You know, on the egg, that's the hey, that's the news of the people. Okay, that's what elon said during the election. Yeah, he said that's the people's news. There we go. You know only a thousand, a thousand. How many do you have, jeremy? So, um, but I mean, it really really got my attention and it's got me a little concerned about um defoliation, where this pest has been a problem and where it's kind of gotten away from us and we weren't timely and we didn't use products that uh, dr roberts and sarah have looked at and uh are sending out to our agents to recommend i'm'm afraid I'm going to make a statement that's out of line, but I'm going to say it because I think it needs to be said.
Speaker 2Well, you won't think it's out of line when I say it. My experience on some of the work we're doing around recommendations are being given by others out of there about harvesting stuff and all and I think it's starting to worry me a little bit after you just said what you said, because I'm like a field we've got been recommended to just not spray anything because it's looking like we're close enough to defoliation. We're probably going to foliate in a week, week and a half. This was like a week ago. They told us not to spray and I'm like, oh well and we probably messed up.
Speaker 1You know, the recommendation is you can stop. You don't have to treat if you're at 20% open or 25% open and the leaves are green. That's the ticket Cause once they start to turn, there ain't no going back. Yeah, see, we were on that borderline as a problem.
Speaker 2I'm like it makes me really like we might've messed up by that. We may not have, we may have, we don't know Right.
Speaker 1I mean, we we got a lot to learn like in this particular situation.
Speaker 3On this farm that I'm talking about.
Speaker 1I didn't think it was going to be as drastic as it was, but it was and that. But they were, they were in it and I mean I I took some little counts like little observations. I mean there was probably four per leaf. You know, in where I didn't spray versus where I go and went and sprayed it a couple weeks ago I saw one adult on a few different spots.
Speaker 1But again, the reason that I say all that is I want to stress that the agents, like Jeremy, are as up-to-date as you can be on a subject there's people out there that are recommending stuff that I know it's kind of like the comment I made about cotton pickers and moving up and down the road. Right, there's people out there that are recommending stuff that's just stupid. Okay, because it's like hey, I understand that we're desperate, but we have things that work. We know that they work whenever utilized on time, and so we just gotta we be in touch with your county agent, get on their email list, call them, ask them about it, because they're the ones that know. Okay, I don't like getting these texts that, oh, such and such, whoever is recommending something and I know right out the gate it's not going to work, because we know that.
Speaker 1Money wasted, time wasted and crop wasted, yeah, and so it was really eye-opening to me. But I do get concerned about defoliation with respect to this, because everybody and their brother is thinking, well, I'm not in any hurry with this cotton. Well, I'm not, I'm not in any hurry with this cotton, and and even me and philip have had conversations surrounding what the point, what the benefit is of defoliating on time, and after seeing what I saw yesterday, once it starts going down this road, I'm concerned that the leaves are going to die and I mean we stick yeah, and that's that's what I'm.
Speaker 1if we don't defoliate this crop on time and don't get good uptake of these products, then it could freeze these leaves and and you start talking about leaf issues trash issues, we're going to get an extraneous matter cause Potentially yeah.
Speaker 1And I mean, that's the thing is, we're still learning, right, so we don't know, but it's just based on what I saw. We're still learning, right, so we don't know, but it's just based on what I saw. If it's not, if that crop wasn't going to get defoliated yesterday, which I? I sprayed it.
Speaker 1So I mean, I, I know that it was um done on time and and all that good stuff, but it's it's like a lot of guys are more concerned about peanuts or aren't ready for cotton because this, this cotton's done started picking up steam and, um, we've got to defoliate this crop on time. And two, if you're in a fight with them and you want to get out of it, get out of that fight, the best way to do it is to knock the leaves off because they're feeding on the, germinate it, and so it's uh, but uh, the other thing is is, once you do that, they're going somewhere, okay, so we still need to keep an eye on this, on this later plant of cotton or stuff that isn't defoliating, right. So I mean, it's a. It is a complicated issue, um, so I've probably talked more about it than I should and said things that I don't know I've got to leave.
Speaker 2I've got to leave in three minutes. I wanted, I want to stay, the others you listen, I'd like to stay and continue the conversation because I think we're good and I want to hear what Jeremy's got to say too. But, camp, ask you a question before the podcast, just because I've had it asked multiple times. I just wanted it cleared up to you, know, about leaf hairiness and maybe you know I think we're going to start having those conversations. But I think now, if it's coming to me and I mean, I right, it's fine, it's out there. I'm sure you and philip had the question. It's around. People are asking it over and over and over again, so let's address it real quick. What I've, what has been asked to me, is the effect of leaf hairiness on um, yeah, on jacid populations, and is there a way we can address it with different varieties?
Speaker 1yeah, so, um, we we've talked briefly about this. There's a little bit of literature out of out of india, of India and Pakistan and places like that.
Speaker 2Where the bug came from originally.
Cotton's Place in Georgia Agriculture
Speaker 1That's right, that's where it's from, and you know they've got a couple of mechanisms of tolerance in their varieties, but the main one has to do with pubescence and the jacids. They prefer smooth cotton, isn't that right, sarah?
Speaker 3The jacids prefer smooth, smooth cotton. Isn't that right, sarah? I think that's the preferred.
Speaker 1And so the mechanism of resistance in, or one of the mechanisms of resistance over there in India is to plant hairy cotton, and whenever we talk about hairy, I'm not talking about semi-smooth varieties, we're talking about hairy cotton like real hairy, and that's not something that we need to do in georgia because of the white fly issue, because that's what white flies prefer. There we go. I think we got it right.
Speaker 3so so we need to select.
Speaker 2I have to run because I promise somebody not, yeah, and I'm supposed to be there in a minute. I got to drive over to rdc. Yeah, a perfect, yeah, perfect explanation.
Speaker 3Good to see you with yeah, um, hey, jeremy so do we need to um select semi-smooth varieties there?
Speaker 1I don't think so, jerry. I don't think that that's gonna help enough to because, like I said, the, the, the hairiness that they're talking about, is extremely hairy, not not just a few here and there. And I and I mean really the industry here has moved into such such a position where we're really wanting smooth and semi-smooth. But I mean semi smooth just means a few hairs. You know we, it would have to completely change and then hairy varieties cause problems with defoliation and quality and and like that. So we don't especially you, jeremy, you don't want to go down that road with hairy cotton. I mean that's a bad situation.
Speaker 3Well, we got an interesting insect complex down here. We got Y-fly plant bug, jacid stink bug. So insecticide selection is often a challenge.
Speaker 1I'm sure that's right. That's right. What else is going on in colquitt county?
Speaker 3have y'all, uh, have y'all defoliated some jeremy yes, we defoliated a small percentage, um, last week and I think, I think harvest is going to start, you know, on those acres, probably this week. Yeah, so, um, but I would like to, you know, give give philip and and sarah some props over. You know what they've done with jacids, you know, just think about it. We didn't really know a whole lot about the two-spotted leaf cotton leaf hopper. You know, beginning of august and now we have insecticides that we can select for. You know particular situations and scouting techniques and and you know we've come a long way, yeah, so you know. Thanks, phillip, and thanks to that entomology team for giving that information to the agents so we can get to the growers. Because it was a, it was a bad situation there for a couple of weeks.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, I mean ain't no doubt, and it's something that I did an interview a week ago maybe, and I gave a shout-out to Phillip and Sarah in the Southeast Entomology Working Group and Cotton Incorporated. I mean, these guys are just all over it and of course they cut that part of my interview out.
Speaker 3It almost ranks up there with weed resistance, if you think about it.
Speaker 1Yeah, oh, 100 percent, because it was like it just showed up out of nowhere and we didn't know what to do. Right, we had gotten so used to not that we didn't know what to do, because, in terms of in weed resistance, we knew what to do. We had just kind of gravitated away from some of those things and we had to come back, but with this one it was like we we had to learn what to do pretty quick yeah.
Speaker 3So extension, you know good extension work. That's how extension works. Yeah and um, and you know we're, we're great, yeah, so now we just have to figure out how to make cotton more profitable and sustainable so we can grow cotton next year.
Speaker 1Yeah, I was talking to somebody yesterday about this insect issue and it was actually my tractor man, former gen manager Chandler. I was talking to him yesterday and he just told me he was like we need cotton, we need it in Georgia, and he's right. I mean we absolutely need it. Like we need cotton, like we need it in Georgia, and he's right, I mean we, we absolutely need it. It's a good rotation for us, it fits our dry land acres. Um, we need it, and so we've got to figure out how to how to make this thing work.
Speaker 3Um, you know that it kind of keeps everything in equilibrium. You know rotations, disease and and you know this year um the acres flip-flop in cockle county I think we have, you know, give or take 39,000 acres peanuts and 35,000 acres of cotton.
Speaker 1That's the first time I've seen it since I've been here yeah, and as a state we're over 900,000 on peanuts and, uh, about 850 on cotton. So I mean it's certainly a different situation and it is made more difficult by new challenges, right?
Speaker 3So when was the last time that happened?
Speaker 1Oh, this is the lowest. This is the lowest cotton acres have been since 1993. But I don't know the last time that peanut acres exceeded cotton. I mean it's been a long time since that, because even back back then, I mean in 93, wasn't a, wasn't a quota still in place, jeremy?
Speaker 3I think they've done away with quota in 02 so.
Speaker 1So then, back in 93, there was still a lot of soybeans around. So I mean, you know, even then the peanut acres weren't extremely high, um, because for the most part over in east georgia they were. They were planting soybeans, and even to a limited extent, around here. But, um, you know, since, since quota's gone away and and and boll weevil has been eradicated, and transgenic cotton and things like that, we're we've been, you know, anywhere from six to eight hundred thousand on peanuts and over a million on cotton since 1993. And so it's, it is just a it's a different situation now than it has been in the past, and a lot of that's driven by the price of these commodities. And then, uh, demand is the big one, right, that everybody talks about, and so, um, the the big thing is just increasing demand on this cotton.
Speaker 1So, if you're listening to this, it is september, okay, and uh, it's time, hey, it's time to start thinking about the holidays. Okay, there's a lot of september birthdays too. I've been going to a lot of kids birthday parties lately and uh, hey, if you're trying to think of a gift, uh, for a child, let's say they grow out of them clothes really, really fast, so let's buy them some cotton t-shirts and maybe some cotton pants okay, 100, if you can find it okay and look at the tag. Okay, because it's you start looking, and I mean some of that stuff's kind of hard to find. So look at the tag before you buy yourself or your children or somebody else's children, some clothes, because I mean it's a big deal and you support your local economy.
Speaker 1By by looking at the tag, you know, yep, that's right. And so, uh, buy cotton please. Hey, if you need new towels or bed sheets, there's a lot of options on cotton out there. Okay, we're gonna turn this thing around. That's how it's gonna go. So, jeremy, is there anything else that we need to be thinking about that has not been discussed today.
Speaker 3You know we talked about, so I don't know, I jumped on late, but yeah, so we talked about irrigation termination.
Speaker 1We did discuss a few defoliant products and just the way that the weather's looking right now and some of this later.
Final Thoughts and Recommendations
Speaker 3cotton and then you got on about the time that that we were getting real fired up on on cotton jacet yeah, so I think you did mention something about defoliating jacet infested cotton, right, right, yeah, so that was the big question. I've been getting this, yeah, yeah, a lot ofet you know. Is it going to defoliate, right, if we have a lot of, you know, jacet injury or jacet feeding, copper burn, yeah, but and hey.
Speaker 1So here's, here's kind of where I'm at with some of that. Okay, I'll kind of explain my thought process with some of that. So the the is, the greener the cotton is, the more likely it is that you're going to have good uptake of these products, okay. And so if it's started to turn yellow, I think you still got a chance. If it's still red, it might be a little more difficult, but I think we still got a shot.
Speaker 1But once those leaves the next step for those leaves is once they turn red they're going to turn brown. If you don't defoliate, if they, they turn brown, that's whenever I think we're in trouble. Okay, so we don't want to get to that point, and that's why I think it's important to stress timely defoliation with respect to this pest is because if those leaves turn brown, I think that's where we could start to see issues, and so the greener it is, the better could start to see issues, and and so the the greener it is, the better. Um, but don't let it get past the point of no return. Is is kind of what I'm thinking right now. And um, jeremy, I mentioned that I'm on the x and uh, I did post a video with some of those thoughts yesterday too, sarah. So, um, hey, it's all on the x, is it? I'll check it out. Hey, it's all on the.
Speaker 3X. I'll check it out.
Speaker 1Hey, the people's news. I don't have X.
Speaker 3Hey, you should get X. I'll check it out and then Camp's going to send it out to the agents this afternoon, right?
Speaker 1I will. I will send it out to the agents. If that's what the agents would like, I will send that to the agents.
Speaker 3Yeah, send it out to the agents and then we'll see you at noon.
Speaker 1camp hey that sounds like a plan, jeremy, and look, if anybody listens to this and has any other questions, feel free to reach out to your local UGA County Extension agent. Y'all have a good couple of weeks. 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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