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
Georgia Cotton Harvest: Data, Decisions, and Defoliation
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A strong crop and a tighter runway. We kick off with a clear snapshot of Georgia cotton quality and why harvest has suddenly accelerated, then dive into the decisions that will define the finish: defoliation timing ahead of a hard freeze, reading yield data for profit, and recognizing when insects actually move the needle. You’ll hear what surprised us this season—big yield gains from thrips control on slow-starting April cotton—and why jassid responses hinged on timing relative to plant decline. We unpack the shift toward lower jassid thresholds, the role of potash in injury severity, and how to separate insect blame from drought, elevation, and fertility signals you can see on a yield map.
From the cab to the office, precision ag earns its keep. We walk through calibrating yield monitors and onboard module weighing, confirming software unlocks, and using John Deere Operations Center to turn data into profit maps that guide next year’s inputs. Instead of forcing uniformity, we talk reallocation: dialing seeding rates by zone, pushing strong areas responsibly, and reducing inputs where returns won’t follow. Elevation, soil texture, and nematode sampling help decode those stubborn 4-bale-to-1.5-bale swings inside the same field, so winter plans can do more than guess.
Urgency matters this week. A hard freeze with lows in the upper 20s means defoliants need three sunny days to work before the cold sets in. We explain why cloudy, cool conditions stall defoliation, how ethephon accelerates opening, and the difference between a helpful frost and a yield-costing freeze. We close with safety reminders around pivots and live power, plus practical tips to keep crews and equipment out of harm’s way during long harvest days.
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Quality Snapshot And Harvest Ramp-Up
SPEAKER_02Bringing 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. So today, Wes is trying to talk politics. Today is November the 5th. And we're talking, we're talking cotton, Wes. We're not talking we're not talking mayor elections and things like that.
SPEAKER_00I'm just ready to get in the truck with Phillip and go for a ride.
SPEAKER_02Just get in the truck and keep going. So uh the government still shut down, everybody. So we don't have the crop progress report, but I did go pull some quality data today. So uh let's see, as of last Monday, we had just over 220,000 bales classed. Good number. 86% of those bales were 31s and 41s. We were averaging a 36 staple, 31 strength, 46 on micronair. That's gone down. A three leaf, 81 and a half uniformity, and a premium of 238 points. We'll take that. Uh yeah. So uh doing good. It feels like to me that this week, um, and maybe even a last week a little bit, harvest has ramped up a lot. And uh the reason that it feels that way is because uh agents have started calling asking for scales for variety trials. And so everybody needs the scales like this week and first part of next. So we're we're trying to uh get all that figured out. But hey, we got us a uh good crowd today. Hey, congratulations are in order. Uh Miss Sarah Hobby's here with us today, but it's actually her second day of retirement.
SPEAKER_03Yay!
SPEAKER_02Yay for Sarah, but she's actually gonna be bad for Dr. Roberts. He's over there crying. So um, but Sarah's gonna be with us. She's uh she's gonna keep working on a podcast with us.
SPEAKER_03That's right. I'll be here.
SPEAKER_02She'll still be around, be in the loop and everything. She just won't be out there counting jazz with Dr. Roberts no more. Good for Sarah.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_02Bad for Dr. Roberts.
SPEAKER_03No, I'll miss it.
Team Introductions And Season Context
SPEAKER_02Uh Wes is over there decked out in his camouflage. Everybody's getting camouflage hats, so I guess I need to um get the memo. Yeah, get that Montfort started it. He gave one to Coach Smart, his brother, the other day. I wonder if Coach Smart's gonna wear it. But uh, and then Dr. Roberts is with us. Good morning. Hey, hey, Doctor Roberts, good day to those that are listening. All right, so I kind of went over the quality stuff. Of course, I got some stuff to talk about uh as it relates to the foliation, particularly first part of next week. But uh I don't know what are you guys? Hey, Dr. Roberts, what's the bug uh situation? We're done.
Pest Wrap-Up And Big Thrips Gains
SPEAKER_01We're done. Yeah, yeah, that's good. But uh no, we're trying to get yield date on some things. Hey, what you got so far, man? Well, hey, somebody talking about thrips, something different. Wow, okay. You know, at the at the bowing farm this year, everybody's heard us talk about the bowing farm. Terrible ground. Hey, we made excellent cotton. And you know, and and we already know this, but it's so consistent. Yeah. So consistent. But we got such a a yield response from just thrips control this year. And uh you know, sometimes, you know, yeah, I mean, we had decent growing conditions, but that cotton was planted in the middle of April, so it was kind of cool. But and when you have slow growing plant, it does put a little pressure on your thrips management program. But we had a big response this year, like a bell. So it just you know, it's just a reminder that we need to continue to do what we need to do, Camp, make good decisions. Um Most people are probably interested in what we're seeing with Jassid. Of course they are. And we actually picked a trial yesterday in Appling County. Hey, we picked some last week in Ataugus. Some in Atapaugus. Somebody ginned it for you. Somebody ginned it Monday morning. Looking forward to some quality data. Uh we actually have hand picked some trials, some of these efficacy trials. And you know, what we can say now is three of the five trials we picked, we saw a yield response. And pretty much looks directly related to the number of chassids. But uh, does it have anything to do with when they came in? I really think that's uh an important question. Because the two trials we didn't get a yield response. Um and again, the the intent of the trial was to generate efficacy data, but uh one of the trials was uh almost 50 percent open when we sprayed it. Yeah. No yield response. The other trial was about 10 percent open when we sprayed it, no yield response. Now I thought we might see one there, but you know, that's just one data point. Yeah, right. But I think uh as we move forward, it's all about when these things come in and when the plant declines. And uh if we can get to the latter part of bloom, you know, we're still gonna need to intervene um with insecticides if they come back, which likely they're they'll overwinter.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Well, we've come a long way. And uh you know, we know how to kill it. We know it matters. Yep. We're getting closer to when it matters. And uh, you know, if we just review our threshold, we went from three the first time we since conversations were happening and it was five.
SPEAKER_02It was five.
SPEAKER_01Within a day, it was three, then it was two, and now it's one. So confident, huh?
SPEAKER_02Well, it may be less than that. Hey, I've been trying to tell you one's a good number. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Folks in Pakistan were pretty close. Uh-huh. That's about where they sit right now. What'd they say? One to three. One to two. One to two. But anyway, uh no, well, we've picking we're picking good cotton. Oh, man. And and yeah, you know, we're making progress depending on where you are in the state. No, when I went over to East Georgia yesterday, uh we're not probably not as far along, but that's that's probably normal. That's normal, yeah. That's normal. But you know, when I'm riding down the road, sometimes it takes me a little further, a little longer to get somewhere because You like to stop. I like to stop and count bail round bales. And hey, there's a lot of our there's a lot of two-plus cotton out there.
SPEAKER_02Oh, yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01You know, we uh we're picking everything in most areas. And uh that's a good thing, but from an insect standpoint, we're done. We're just gotta try to go through all our data and make sense. And uh before we know it, we'll be visiting with growers.
SPEAKER_02That's right. I sent out the stuff yesterday. Try to get some get some plans made for the wintertime. Dr. Roberts is gonna be a hot commodity this spring, I think. So uh it's just cost of doing business there, Dr. Roberts. But uh Wes, I think we're out of peak water use. Better be.
SPEAKER_00Probably better be out of all water use, I think.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00I think I don't even know. I wouldn't have come in as like, what am I gonna talk about today? I don't know. There's things we could talk about, probably on the more of the machinery side, but water usage, unless you planned your cotton in July, and some of you may have.
Jassid Trials: Timing, Thresholds, Yield
SPEAKER_02Hey, we planted some later than normal. Yeah. June 11th for us, later than normal for us is late, like mid-June. Yeah, so we but I mean we're gonna defoliate that on Friday. Camp's gonna defoliate that on Friday. Yeah, you'll be thinking about it. You know, I was thinking about this this morning. I was talking to one of my students yesterday, Amy, and I told her whenever I was in her shoes and like a student worker, I just wanted to be a tractor driver. Well, there you go. You got it. Sounds like I am a tractor driver. I went to a lot of school and I'm driving that. And then she she said, Yep, you and that 6700. So, yep, me and 6700. When it works, it's great.
SPEAKER_01There's so much value in tractor time. Yes. You see things. I saw something in a trial at the Gibbs farm last week. Uh-huh. It it solved it solved a big problem. It solved a big problem. But if I wouldn't have had time on the sprayer, you know, I I was would have had something. It was a problem. But uh You'd have lost a trial.
SPEAKER_02But you simple as that. Yep. Good thinking time. It's great thinking time. Strategic planning time. Yeah, it should be that. But uh yeah, out-of-peak water use machinery-wise, what about like anything about these yield monitors and stuff like that?
SPEAKER_00Well, I mean, yeah, there's probably a few things we can talk about there. Um, first, I would echo what you just said. We have a trial planted June 10th or 11th, and it's uh we're defoliating that probably this week, too. We're trying to hit the optimal defoliation window. We've not irrigated that trial at least three weeks, maybe more. I'd have to look back. It was pretty amazing to watch uh on that one. Us go from demanding water pretty strong, my students stressing out about it on when to terminate, and then I said, look, it's gonna work out. And then all of a sudden, two days later, it quit wanting water. I was like, There you go. And it was right after what we talked about, right after cut out, right when bowls started opening. So either way, but yeah, we'll go to the machinery side. Um I guess the first thing I do have uh sent it out a while back, so agents have access to it. They can share it, should have shared it with everybody, but there's uh uh Extension Precision Act blog post on how to calibrate your yield monitor and your onboard module weighing system. Um, a lot of our systems now, our CP690s, will have onboard module weighing from factory. A lot of our CP7760s will also have that system if you paid for it or it was integrated with it when you bought the machine. So I would encourage you to, if you have never calibrated that onboard module weighing system to do it, it just provides you with a little bit of extra uh information that you can see what your module weights are as you move them onto those handlers. I um it's linked in the blog post, but I did some work a couple years ago at the encouragement of Cotton Incorporated, where I pulled together, thanks to a lot of our cotton specialists across the cotton belt, and that was on the Cotton Corner podcast last year. We talked about the accuracy of that system, how to use it, what it could be used for, and some of that. And um nice to have the availability of that if it's if you have it on your farm to just to know your module weights as you're pulling them off. Similarly, on your um cotton yield monitoring, we ran into a system, into a situation yesterday. Um two of my guys did where we thought the system had uh yield monitoring capabilities, but it was a I think it came back to a hardware software issue, even though they think it was there, it was not unlocked on the monitor. We even talked to a couple of our John Deere friends, and they was the same thing we couldn't figure out to start with. So there's no software there, and that may happen to you. You know, you just need to know going into the season. Now we're in it, we're picking, and hopefully you're not figuring that out like we did yesterday. And I'm not picking on anybody. This was a custom harvester, and the the harvester was his the driver was his second day on the machine, right? If you run into situations like that, I got it. But if you're you know, if it's your machine, your system, you you should know if you got um Yield Monder on it. And I'd encourage you to um flag a few modules for calibration this year, especially if you've got what I would call extreme variety differences, right? So we did some work uh similarly. I was finishing my PhD and starting uh my role here, where we collected a bunch of different varieties and bowl sizes and bowl weights across the cotton belt and weighed those and compared those back to your Mondra data. And it all kind of comes out in the wash, but if you are, again, I would make the statement if you're growing two dynamically different varieties, you probably want to calibrate by variety in that case, just to make sure you got more accurate data if you plan to do something with it. And I would encourage you to try to do some of that data. I mean, I there's a lot we can do with it nowadays. I mean, I would probably say 98% of you guys are have yield moners, it's all John Deere right now. And it goes into op center data. And through op center, you can create profit maps too. If you've logged your other um production operations in there, I think you can use some of that data to look at. And if not, I think they have a built-in model that looks at it, asks you a few questions and you can create a profit map. I would make the statement that in a year like this, a profit map's pretty important across that field because it might really help me make some hard decisions for next year. Back to Phillips point, riding a riding a sprayer is the same way as riding a picker. And we're riding a picker, even if we don't have uh if we're not using a yield map, I I mean, I'm sure both you can attest this. Growers riding there and watch that yield flowing through, and you recognize even if you're not watching it on the monitor, you're watching it with your own. Oh, you can see spray, yeah.
Harvest Pace And Regional Differences
SPEAKER_02You can see well, it's like even that stuff we was picking last week in Atapogus. I mean, there were some there were some plots in there that looked like, you know, it may have been a yield difference or whatever, but it wasn't a treatment thing. Right. Right? It was just a a weaker spot in this one field.
Irrigation Taper And Tractor-Time Insights
SPEAKER_00Well, exactly what my student talked about yesterday, right? In his some his planner research, we have weaker spots in a field that it wasn't affected. It wasn't a our treatments didn't drive it. But you need we need to in that particular field, we think it's a nematode issue. It was some ground that hadn't been farmed a lot. And I say that to, you know, Bob's not in here, but he's been saying in his emails now it's the time to nematode sample if your um if your soil is wet enough, it's hard to pull those samples when it's really dry. But um, I'm I'm leading into all that stuff. We're about to start soil sampling for the fall. It's nice to have that spatial layer of data field to say, all right, do I do I see significant differences in this field that I may want to try to work towards addressing? Because from my perspective, coming from that engineering side, precision ag side, I don't want to go into 2026 putting the same inputs into 60 cent cotton that I did this year if it definitely didn't make me profit. And we already know that we need basically 90 cent cotton to be profitable. And so what can I do moving into 2026 to make sure that I'm not losing money in some of those areas of the field that I know that I can make a difference in? So is it, hey, I'm gonna go soil sample to two and a half acre grid this time instead of a five or a ten because I'm seeing more spots? Is it that I'm noticing a consistent weak spot in the field over here in my yield data? Is it a I mean, is it a water drive spot? It could be. Elevation data will help you know that sometimes. But there's a lot of things going on in the field. It could be nematodes, could have been disease, who knows, deer damage, for example, right, Camp? You've got some guys working on some of that on edges of fields. We know it's usually that. But what management practice can we change based on that? And that's what we need to be thinking about right now, you know, as we harvest and we say, man, this is some four bell cotton right here, and then all of a sudden we're like, crap, we're in bell and a half cotton, bell cotton. Why? That's the question I want to know. Why? And is there something that I can change? I might never be able to take that bell cotton up to four bell, but do I need to be fertilizing it, putting out the seeding rate, putting out the management strategy that I am for my four bell cotton in the same field? You know, for example, that's an extreme example, but I think that's where we've got to be a little more frugal and use this data to really drive some of our decisions. So again, I go back to this. If you've got Yield Monders, get some calibration data on them so that you can feel confident in it. Pull that data and actually look at it this winter. I know and I say it to my colleagues, and maybe it's just an excuse for us in the South. We stay busy in the South. Our guys up north, uh, they get snow and they get shut down for a while, right? I feel like we never stop and we have a very diversified cropping system. But spend a week or two, if you can, pulling that data and looking through it. And just even if you're not truly doing a hardcore like analysis on it, visually look at it and say, what am I seeing in this field and how should I change? Can I change a management strategy out here, right? I think it's as simple as that. And we're here to help. Um, same way we're gonna be spending some time in front of you guys soon. And even if uh we're not directly in front of you guys, you all know how to get a hold of us to talk about some of that. And I've talked to a lot more people recently about soil sampling strategies, about looking at some uh yield data, about looking and making different decisions. So now's the time of year to think about that, right? Soil samples will be pulled very shortly after we get this crop out in the in the uh fall, prior to winter, hopefully, so that we can start making decisions for the spring.
SPEAKER_01This week I was talking with someone, and uh they were talking about how they were going from three plus to less than two in the same field. And and this was a grower who does the majority of his own spraying, and he defin he he drives a picker also. And he called me and he says, You remember those bad jazz spots we talked about? And he was just emphasizing, I I see them. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he you know, one of the things I think we noticed too, and it it we may want to try to blame things on jazz, but I really think it was a combination of factors because I think potash is so important with this insect. I mean, we've got a lot of work to do, but uh where we tended to be a little low on potash in that plant, it seems like the jazz would cause more injury. So you know, the hard part with is figuring out how to correct a problem. That's it. And uh and ground truth in it because uh but it's super valuable data or information just to look at a yield map.
Yield Monitors And Module Weighing
SPEAKER_00Uh for me, uh even if it's not, and I I shouldn't say this isn't an official recommendation, right? But this is get West just me and you sitting down. Even if it's not calibrated, the relative differences in it are gonna give you information. For me, it's that simple. To Phillip's point, we're seeing the relative differences. What what I like having that yield data for and a profit data for is to quantify it, even if it's not 100% accurate. Again, I I don't I can't officially recommend that, but it gives you am I like what is how bad is this hurting me? How about that? That's the best way to see quantification of the yield loss. And so utilize that to help you realize do I do I need to make a decision? Is it enough to make me make a decision? And then to Phillip's point, I that's what a lot of us spend our time doing with you guys, and it's the hardest part of the job is that troubleshooting, trying to figure out what in the world is causing this and what is driving it. Yeah. And I mean, y'all know, we know, and that's why I mentioned nematode samples, soil samples, to me, that's our baseline. We got to know that we're good there this time of year. I don't know what else this time of year can we figure out. That's all I can think of right now.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, the hard part is that if you have a problem area in a field right now, it's like how do you diagnose it? It's hard to know. You can't, you know. I remember, I think it was a couple years ago, we went and looked at something and it was missing a ton of fruit or whatever, and it was like you were ready to or somebody was ready to blame it on plant bugs. But it's like you can't blame something on plant bugs if you weren't there when they were there. That's right. If you didn't know that they were there, yeah, you can't do a post mortem. Post mortem. And so I mean, it's a you know, it's the same with with jazz, right? And and I mean I've gotten some of those phone calls where it's like, oh, we're missing all this fruit. Did the jazzids do that? And I I don't think so. You know, I it doesn't I I mean I just don't think it works that way, but I don't know.
SPEAKER_01I don't know either, but I mean you can go down the road and you see a switch in the top of a plant. Yeah, it's just nothing. Yeah. You know, and oh gases made the shit. Well, maybe it didn't rain for six weeks.
SPEAKER_02It didn't rain in August, in the first part of September.
SPEAKER_00Well, some of that we'll see show up in elevation, right? If you had later planted cotton and we got that that lack of rain, our higher areas in the field, our sand hills, whatever you want to call them. Y'all know what I'm talking about, like up on the ridge is not the bottoms. It's a lighter soil where it's not eroded down to the bottom. That that dried out faster. Yeah. And it hit stress faster. Now, what can you do differently about that next year? I don't know. Just try your best to manage irrigation a little bit better in that time of year. If it's dry land, there's nothing we can do about it. But, you know, maybe that shows you that we fell behind a little bit faster there. And again, I go back, to me, this time of year is probably the most optimal for trying to, you're post-diagnosing, but post-diagnosing fertility issues in that field at some level, and it helps you make a better plan moving forward. Are we going to do of some sort of variable rate nutrient application moving into the spring? Is it warranted? Right. And that's what it answers that question. You know, going a little bit higher resolution on those soil samples right now. Is it warranted to to discuss doing a variable rate application of nutrients, or do we are we just in a building scenario? What's your pH look like? Right? That's another thing. Do we need to really consider that? So that'll help resolve itself right now. And maybe you noticed other things to Phillips Point, the camp's point during the season that we need to try to diagnose now and move forward.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I'm probably out of my line because I don't know out of my lane if somebody was saying. But you know, a lot of times I hear people talk about these profit maps and yield maps, and uh they seem to focus on the poor areas, trying to bring them up. But we need to optimize every area. That's where you have optimize inputs on on each of them. It's not just bringing a weak area up. Where you have strong areas, are you optimizing there?
SPEAKER_02With all this precision ag stuff, that was the first conversation, right? Was making it all homogenized.
SPEAKER_00But we recognize we can't do that.
SPEAKER_02There's just spots in a field that are just bad. Yes. And it, I mean, you're not gonna bring it up.
SPEAKER_00But to Phillips' point, you might have a spot that you're um you're undervaluing right now. Yes.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, oh yeah, push that, put and like redirect it all, right? Well, that's reallocation of putting the same amount But you're getting better out of it. Reallocation. Redistribution as some of our friends uh at north of here might talk about. But it's a return on an input. Yep. Yeah, well, you you're spending the same amount per acre. But you're right, maximum. But you redis redistribute things where they're needed.
SPEAKER_00To me, like a seeding rate's another one I think we've got to look at a little bit more. I've got a student working on that some, and our camp's working on it some. My students working on it from the spatial distribution performance of that. Uh-huh. So can we use soil texture? Can we use, I don't know, elevation data, a combination of that. We're gonna run some models on where does this start to matter? And is there certain areas? So I'm gonna make the statement, it might be inverse of what we think. We may have a better producing area because this better producing, we might could actually back our seeding rate down some. And those plants are gonna be are gonna be able to compensate so much in that area. We've saved on seed, but we've either maintained andor push yield a little bit higher, right? Yeah. I'm not saying significantly. And then we also know we get in dry land scenario or we get in poor yielding areas. Do we need to be putting out 28,000 seeds per acre?
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Probably not. I mean, I understand why we do, but we also start slowly seeing data that shows us that we can push in the lower 20s. And I've seen stuff I'm not recommended. It worries me, especially from planner performance, but in the upper teens, right? We've seen guys plant some of that and come out with what they feel like is acceptable yields. But I want to know why and where and how does that work. And so as we start to develop those data sets, that's gonna help us make better recommendations for you guys. But you know your fields, you know what you're comfortable with. You got a planter capable of uh various rate seeding to me, and you got a yield monitor, it's just it's this it's this easy what I'm about to say. You can go in and legit punch a seeding rate in that monitor as quick as you can type anything in, plant a strip in it. To Phillips' point, you could plant three different seeding rates across that high yielding area and determine which one of those would have been optimal for there. So, would it have been increasing seeding rate a little bit, would it have been decreasing, or are you hitting the target right where you need to be? So, how do we how do we use that data to make those decisions? And I think that's things we want to think about now.
Profit Maps And Variable Management
SPEAKER_01Well, the hard parts we know how many plants we need. Yeah. It's how many seed do you need to put in the ground to get that number of plants. And that's what you were addressing with the case. That's the hard part, the soil types and elevation and that's the hard that that's the real hard part. It is uh yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yep. And it could vary from year to year. I mean, you just I I think it will. I talked to a colleague of mine uh at Clemson, they did some work similar to this over there, and that's exactly what told me that he got frustrated because he did it for like three or four years, and where you thought you had something nailed down, it changed the following year. And he's like, there's no clear-cut answer. And I think we know that, but at least having some I want at least a rough guideline. You get my point. Like, I'm not gonna be able to have the magic bullet, but I don't think we ever will. And even somebody that's farmed a field for 30 years might can't come up with a magic bullet that's gonna fix it all, but you're gonna be close. You're gonna know like what recipe brings it in together.
SPEAKER_02Well, and you just learn the you just learn these fit, you get history.
SPEAKER_00Mm-hmm. Dr.
SPEAKER_02Roberts, history's important is very important. History's very important. Hey, what about some defoliation? Yeah, so um Dr. Roberts pulled up his weather app, and I was doing mine at the same time. Oh, really? Um, it's about to get cold. Yeah, so this weather the last few weeks has just been weird because I mean last week it was it was chilly, and I mean it was highs in the 60s overcast, lows in the 40s, and I mean even down into the high 30s in some places. This week it's gonna get back up to 80, and then next Monday the high is like 51, but then our lows are what's concerning because in spots across Georgia, we're looking at lows of 27 and 28 on Monday. And so uh, hey, if you hadn't defoliated cotton we need to bad. So talk a little more about that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah. So how close can yeah. So normally all right. So I send an email out to our agents every week. Yep. Sometimes I'm later than others. That's okay. But uh I uh I I talk a lot about sunshine and like open weather and how I think that is so important for defoliation. And I really think you need three days, and I I don't care if it's three days before a rain or before some overcast weather comes in or before something like this, like we're talking about, with extremely cold weather. I think that crop needs three days to start doing what it's gonna do before this whatever weather event happens. I got a uh call from a grower uh in Middle Georgia this week, and and he called about a defoliation mix that he had not used in the past, but that he used this year. And so I started talking to him, asking questions. Well, he sprayed it a a day and a half or two days before this overcast and drizzly weather set in and all this stuff, and and uh he didn't get the performance, and he was ready to blame it on this new product that he had not used before. And I told him, I said, Hey, I spray that uh a lot. And I said, I did I've not seen that, and I said, I really think it was the environment when you sprayed it, and so uh that that's got as much to do with I mean, people nitpick on defoliant rates and whatever else, but at the end of the day, I think it's more about the weather than anything.
SPEAKER_00So again, coming from an engineering perspective, and I like to think I have a pretty good agronomy background, but I I think of something like defoliant almost like Roundup. If that plant shut down, or even T4D, if it's shut down, it doesn't matter how much product we put on on that plant, it's not moving it through actively, right? And so it's the same way when we get that cloudy, cool weather, that plant's basically shut down. Yeah. And a defoliant can't work. It's an internal mechanism on that plant that causes it to obsess those leaves. It basically, yeah. I know I should know better how it works, it's just I hadn't read myself up on it before today, but I know that it needs to be actively photosynthesized and basically removing something through that plant and the xylem and flow them. Like that engineer knows those terms. Gone. And uh, you know, if not, then we're done.
SPEAKER_02Well, and I and the other part is you know, temperature is one thing, but with this stuff that's coming on Monday and Tuesday, we start running the risk of like a freeze. Yes. And and if we get a freeze, then those bowls they they start to stink. They start to smell bad. And so it's like if it freezes on them things, they will not open. And so um, that's why it's important to kind of get the ethifon out there, get it working before that sets in, because if you get it working and they can kind of start to pop a little bit before this freeze sets in, they open up, then they'll open. And so um, you know, a big difference there between a frost and a freeze, uh a little bit of a frost may help you some kind of get things moving. Uh, but this weather that's coming is is a freeze. I mean, it's gonna get down, and uh it's not like it's gonna get down to 31 and then the sun's gonna come up, you know. Is it I mean, it's gonna be cold for a while. Well, I just looked again because I didn't see that a day or two ago. And y'all Well, just in the last day or two, I was thinking, okay, it might be a frost, but then today and yesterday, I looked and it's like, oh crap, like it's gonna be fixing to get real.
SPEAKER_00I just looked at the Athens just because it said my favorites are locked up there. It's like twenty six. A little bit further north where my parents live is twenty three. Yeah. And to your point, that's up, you know, about an hour north of Athens is where they're at, or in South Carolina. And down here it's in the upper twenties. And it's not yeah, I was like, all right Well, and that's the thing.
SPEAKER_02I looked here, Midville, Statesborough, and and uh Madison. And I mean it's all twenty-six to twenty-eight. And so I mean if you got cotton out there that has not been defoliated, we need to get something on it three days before Monday. So what? Thursday, tomorrow, Friday. You got a fine. Yeah, so we need to we need to be on a sprayer uh if you hadn't been, just to make sure that we're uh giving that stuff a chance.
SPEAKER_00So I know the data weren't out there and you may have said it at the beginning. Do you know or have any idea what our crop progress reports are?
SPEAKER_02I'd say we're probably um you know, we're at 220,000 bales classed. And so I don't know. It feels like we're that's probably what you say, Dr. Roberts, what's 220,000 in terms of our progress? I mean, that's 20 percent, you think that's maybe less than that.
SPEAKER_01That's less than we're we're 850. If we're gonna harvest 850, I mean I think I mean it's all on what we think what the crop is. I think we have a two a two-bell crop. There's a two-bell crop.
SPEAKER_02So that's that that'd be 1.6 million bales. 200,000.
SPEAKER_01So that's that's on that's on that's less than 15 percent.
SPEAKER_02Yes. Yeah, we're like an eighth. But that's classed. And that that's not what's sitting on a gin yard. But I can't.
SPEAKER_01There's a lot. There's a lot I've noticed as I've drove the last week. But they're sitting in fields and rolling.
SPEAKER_00Well that's what I wouldn't maybe I'm being too conservative, but I would say looking at planting date, looking at where we're at and thinking about it, I mean, I would hope we're 50 percent harvested.
SPEAKER_01I I think it depends on where you are.
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SPEAKER_02Yeah, well, that's right. As a state, we're we're probably in that 40 to 50 percent range, but I imagine in the next week it's gonna go.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I bet if you look at county averages, you're gonna range from 75 or 80 to 10 or less. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it you know, we were wet in some areas this spring.
SPEAKER_02Well, wet, and then I mean, let's just be real. Peanuts, peanuts, a lot of peanuts, peanuts, and everybody's on peanuts. I mean, it's just you know, people think peanuts are gonna make them money. I've heard they ain't. Well, I hope they do. Well, we need something, you know. And so, uh, but you know, people were on peanuts trying to get that first, and now, like I said, kind of to start the podcast off, I I know or I feel like I know when harvest is really ramping up because these variety trials start coming in. And so um, that's really kind of kicked off this week. And so harvest is moving on really quick. And I mean, I imagine by next week we'll be halfway through the variety trial. So we've gotten a few of those ginned. Um, you know, we're we're moving pretty good on some of that stuff, and and so I don't know, but I'm I'm like y'all, I think the crop is good. I mean, I think it's really good.
SPEAKER_00I've heard really good numbers. Uh um the only numbers I've got from Tifton, I didn't look at my yields there. I can't remember what they were. Marco showed them yesterday, and I don't even remember. But um, we're still waiting.
SPEAKER_02They went up, that they range from 1100 to 1500, 1600, probably.
SPEAKER_00So not bad. They were pretty good from considering what we did out there. Yeah. And Midville, I think we're harvesting it today. My crew left this morning to go up and get it. It should be, I'll be interested to see what that data looks like. Cotton up there is good. Yeah, I think our cotton has looked good up there, so I'll be happy to see where it's at, and then we're harvesting Camilla, like I said, like you camp. We're hopefully defoliating this week to get ahead of that cold, and it'll probably be later next week or early the week after, just depending on how fast it drops. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And I mean, we we've ginned a little bit. Me and Dr. Roberts split tractor time on the OVTs this year. I'm I'm pretty proud of this, Dr. Roberts. I mean, the OVT, the irrigated OVTs here in Tifton averaged 1,600 over 1,600 pounds, 16, 1,680. And there was some cotton in there that went four bell. Yep. So I mean, and I mean that's plot yields. So I mean, realistically, that I mean to still good. It's good cotton. 1,800 pounds. Realistically. So um, you know, it there's just good cotton. I I think we had a great year. We're hey, we were one rain away, though. One more rain. One more rain. One more rain. End of August, early September. If we'd have had one in that six weeks, a good one, like a real good one, it'd have been a record. But I mean, it's still gonna be close, though, because I think the second highest is a thousand and two. Second highest is a thousand and two. I think we're gonna be close to that. And that was that was two years ago, three years ago. It's been a good one. Our record was in 2012. Yeah, the record was 1091, and then the second highest is 1,002. Hey, I've been getting some more pictures. Hey, I'm looking, I'm looking, I'm I'm looking for a new picture. Now, at all of our meetings, Dr. Robert shows the same picture and it's from Mitchell County in 2012. What'd that cotton pick? It was about 22. 2200. And he started at meetings this winter. He he said, Hey, I want a new picture. If we get some good cotton, I want a new picture. So people are starting to send pictures in. Got pictures from a couple folks. They're lined up. Some of them, some of them are okay, some of them are 1800, which is good cotton, but it ain't 22. You know, you can still see the ground in that 1800-pound stuff.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02At 2200, you can't see it's white. So um, but yeah, it's the crop's good. Uh, I hope everybody's safe out there. Be careful moving equipment around and junk like that. I mean, uh out of the machines. Uh yeah, oh yeah, around them. Like, I mean, just be careful out there while you're moving machinery, while you're out there greasing up and everything else, and I don't bleeding air out of your hoses and whatever.
SPEAKER_00I don't think I talked about this on this podcast. It gets easy to forget where we've which one they've covered it on. But I I did a story for a young farmer's teacher, I think out of Seminole County, maybe Decatur, I don't remember. I'd have to look her back up. I appreciate her involving me with this one. But this one was a weird one. She wanted to do it because they had a farmer um they were harvesting, and the son was running the cotton picker, and the dad went to move the pivot. Well, the pivot wouldn't move, and he he thought that the son hadn't turned on the power to it, and he poked the screwdriver inside of it because there was a cobweb or something in there, and he ended up spending some time. He's as he it all came out with okay, but he spent some time in Shands because it was such bad burns on his face and hands. And I think it was what I think if I remember right, the fuse had blown, you know, when you open up a pivot panel, they're three-phase power, and so the top of that panel box has three fuses coming in. That's the three legs of your three-phase power. And unless your switch is off going to the pivot before that, those are hot. Just because you've turned it off on the panel box, there's still power coming into the pivot. And that's what happened in this case. He assumed that that I guess he assumed there was no power coming in, and the minute that screwdriver went in there, he was the ground. So um, keep that in mind now. We typically don't think about irrigation systems in the fall being a problem because we've shut them down. But guess what? We got to get them out of the way to harvest. So we'll harvest part of a field and we got to move them, and that's what had happened here. He legit, the story they told me, and it may have been harvesting corn because we did this story about a month ago, it'd sit for like you know, a month. They hadn't ran the system in over a month or longer, and they were like, oh, well, something's broken in that time. You didn't think about it because it's been just sitting idle for that long, and probably the same with most of our cotton harvest. Peanut harvest, our pivots have been sitting now for at least cotton for hopefully a good month, probably, or getting on into your older cotton. And so you go to move that system, just be careful, you know. You just never know. It's as simple as that when you're working around all this stuff. The other thing that scares me a little bit is doesn't you don't see it as much with um our cotton pickers now. You will with basket pickers, but it does worry me, and I've heard stories about this. A lot of y'all have seen it, and I I I I know there's an explanation, probably just to keep dirt out and keep other things off. But you'll drive by fields at night when they're finishing picking uh peanuts, and you'll see all them baskets turned up on those peanut combines. And I've heard stories sometimes about guys, it's dark, right? And your tractor lights on go so much pulling in and out of a field and catching power lines with the baskets. Yeah. You know, so just watch out when you're moving that stuff around. Again, our cotton pickers, you know, those new um module building pickers, you're not as high up that you're gonna be having a basket in the way when you're dumping or moving around. But the same thing, your basket pickers, you would do. So just be careful.
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SPEAKER_02Oh, yeah. Yeah. So be safe out there moving around and doing and um get a sprayer and some cotton. If you hadn't already, I'd do it before by Friday at the very latest. So um, but as always, uh, if y'all got questions or anything like that, uh feel free to reach out and uh to your county extension agent. See y'all. Thank you for listening to this episode of Talkin 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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