From Trials To Fields: Smarter Variety Selection For 2026

Prices are stubborn, inputs aren’t getting cheaper, and acres have shifted—but we still need cotton in Georgia. We take you inside the decisions that matter most for 2026: choosing stable, above‑average varieties with multi‑year proof, pairing trait packages to your pest pressure and management style, and building a plan where timing—not just rate—drives performance. From OVT comparisons to 25 on‑farm trial sites, we explain how to read the data for stability across environments instead of chasing last year’s headline yield.

We also unpack a hot question: can conventional cotton really save money? The math often says no once you include extra trips, worm sprays, and weed pressure. Yield per pound remains the biggest lever on profitability, so we outline where to spend and where to skip—clean starts with effective residuals, scouting‑led insect calls, and right‑time PGRs tailored to variety vigor. Small positioning choices matter too, like using semi‑smooth leaves outside whitefly zones to buy time against jassids and placing aggressive genetics on weaker ground to rein in height and hasten earliness.

Deer pressure is no longer “just a headache”—it’s measurable loss. We share new work that links NDVI satellite imagery to yield maps so you can put dollars to damage, make a case with insurers, and decide if fencing pays back in one field edge or across a whole farm. For those exploring repellents, we discuss practical ways to fold them into existing spray calendars without letting costs outrun returns. Along the way, we keep the focus where it belongs: make every input count, avoid unproven add‑ins, and keep the two‑way conversation going with your county agent.

Subscribe, share this episode with a neighbor, and leave a review with your biggest 2026 decision—what will you change to protect yield this year?

Transcript

County Updates And Why They Matter

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Bringing you all things cotton production and pest management. This is the Talking Cotton Podcast with the University of Georgia Cotton Team. Let's get into the whys of putting on, throwing off, and cutting out. Okay, so this is another episode of County Meeting Updates. We're going to play these in the spring uh throughout meeting time. And really, these are not to replace county meetings, but to serve as another resource, additional information. And uh, you know, just because you may not be able to get to the meeting, or every specialist you want to hear from may not be at the meeting. And so we record these. Uh, we did it all, most of them before the holidays, and so we're gonna release them throughout the spring. Uh, again, just as a resource for you guys, but still do encourage everybody to come to the meetings and visit with everybody, share a meal. I think most all of them are revolve around food. But really, you know, the best part of the meeting for us is visiting with everybody and kind of seeing how the year was, what worked, what didn't. And I mean, I learn as much from all that as I do just from anything, really. I mean, I I really enjoy talking to everybody, and so I don't particularly enjoy just getting on the road and giving PowerPoint presentations every day. They're important, Camp. They're important, but the most important part, I think, is just getting out and seeing people and talking.

SPEAKER_01 1:48

Getting out and seeing people with a two-way flow of information. That's right. I mean, we're delivering content, delivering information, hopefully to improve our profitability. Yeah. But, you know, if you were an administrator with the University of Georgia, they like to use fancy terms like needs assessment.

SPEAKER_00 2:09

Needs assessment, impact.

SPEAKER_01 2:11

Yeah, but we're at doing needs assessment. So when someone comes up to you before or after the meeting and says, here's what you need to do. Here's what you need to do, or I'm having a problem with this. Yeah. You know, that stuff we bring back. Yeah. We share with all of the cotton team. We share with our research counterparts. You know, it's important that we're relevant. We're doing relevant work. Yeah. Because the cotton industry is who we support. That's right. And the only way we know is to get out and listen. Yep. Yep. That's right. Listen. That's right.

2025 To 2026: Markets And Acres

SPEAKER_00 2:46

That's very important. Very important. Very important. Not saying I know I don't want it to come across that it's not. But the more the important part to me is the two-way flow of information. That's right. Not just us getting up and showing a bunch of PowerPoint slides. That's right. Hey, and if you're like me, Camp, uh sometimes you may need to hear it twice. Yeah, yeah. And so this is a resource for that. This is a resource for that. It's recorded, it'll be on the internet forever, maybe. I don't know how long stuff lasts on the internet, but it lasts a long time. So, Camp, I'm Philip Roberts. Hey, hey, Dr.

SPEAKER_01 3:21

Robert Pay. So we're here today, and uh this is Camp's episode. It is. So we're gonna talk about just cotton production in general. And uh when we think of that, you know, one of or probably the most important decision made is being made right now. It is. Um, and that is variety selection.

Variety Trials, Stability, And Risk

SPEAKER_00 3:43

So so if I can, let's back up a little bit. Okay. And uh I wrote about this in an article for the Georgia Cotton Commission newsletter, and that was posted the first part of January, I think. But I wrote in there about how when Hurricane Helene hit at the end of 2024, I started kind of seeing the writing on the wall with how all this stuff was gonna go down. And I said something in there that I think might might confuse some folks, and it might not, they may know what I'm talking about. But at the end of 2024, I began to get concerned about 2026, which is different than what most people would think. Most people would be like, man, we're staring down a problem in 2025, which we were, but I started thinking down the road, right? And and uh I saw that 2025 was gonna be a year where growers have to get through it, right? And they did and did what did what they had to do, right? We planted the fewest cotton acres in the state of Georgia since 1993. Since we're bow weaver free, Dr. Robert. That's that's true. You were in Tennessee, I think. I was you may have still been at the University of Georgia in 1993. No, I would have been at Tennessee. Um, so we planted the fewest cotton acres, first time peanut acres have exceeded cotton since 1993. Same, same time. And so I at the end of 2024, I started seeing that some of that stuff was gonna take place. Of course, we saw increases in corn acreage, a lot of dry land corn, a lot of peanut acres, and then less cotton planted. And and really what I started to think about was that if we planted that many peanut acres and this situation didn't get turned around, that really we were gonna be in a in a bigger pickle going into 2026 than we were in 2025. Lo and behold, all that stuff happened, and here we are going into 2026, and some people may say that it's a worse situation, and it might be, but I'm hopeful, I'm optimistic that there's things in place for 2026 that we're not for 2025. These bridge assistance payments are supposed to go out in February or by the end of February. Cotton was on a really good side of that, and so that's so if you planted cotton in 25, you will get a good chunk of money from that. But then also the big beautiful bill coming at the end of uh or in October, that's gonna hit if you plant cotton in 2026, and so there's things that are in place now that were not in 2025, and so I was concerned coming into this year, but there's been some things take place that have uh alleviated some concerns, but of course we still have a situation, right? Cotton price is still low, input prices are still high, and in large part in Georgia, we still gonna plant cotton. And so we got to figure this thing out, right? And so in 2026, that's what we're gonna try to do. And we've got some different challenges in 2026, even than we had in 2025. Um, Dr. Roberts asked me not to talk about it, so I'm not. But I think a lot of people know what I'm talking about, which is fine. We gotta figure we gotta figure some stuff out, but you're right, the variety trial is important, it's a good source of information, but you know, the thing that the lesson that I learned in 2025 going into 2026 is that the variety trial is a good tool, but it may not predict variety performance for the next year. So you've got I've got a set of 25 locations in 2025, really good representation, really high yield average, and and right now, I mean, we're we're still looking really good on the Georgia crop, but I think our our variety trial yield average was over 1,300 pounds across those 25 locations, and and yield environments ranged from an average of 700 and something to over 1,700. So, I mean, we've got a wide range of environments there and good representation across the state, but you know, there's a there's a variety at the top, right? And it is what it is, and we'll talk about that in the in meetings and all that. It's available online at the cotton team website, preliminary results and all that good stuff. But just because it was at the top in 2025 doesn't necessarily mean it's gonna be at the top in 2026. And so we've got to look at at multiple years of data. Um, there's always gonna be new varieties, and they they look good, you know, but we don't want to we don't want to roll the dice and plant a lot of uh one variety based on one year of data. We want to make calculated decisions, and we have to going into a situation that we're in, and plant things that have been consistent for us, that that do well, that we know do well. And a lot of your variety selection decisions may come down to how risk averse you are, right? Whether you're picking a certain herbicide technology, a certain uh native trait, whatever, with nematodes, bacterial blight, um, whether you got something that shows some of those bronze wilt symptoms or not, all that kind of stuff comes into play. And so, you know, we just need to be mindful of all that kind of stuff and look at multiple years of data to make that decision because it it is important.

SPEAKER_01 10:06

Well, that's one of the the really good things about the on-farm variety trials. You mentioned you had 25 locations and you had yields ranging from 700 to 1700. You know, what you really want to look at is is a variety that tends to be stable, stable, yeah, whatever you want to call it, one that tends to be above average, for example. And uh, you know, if you can look at more years, that's even better. Right. Because you have more environments, right? And and the other thing I would say, and sometimes there's a variety that just works. Yeah, oh yeah. It just works on a farm. Uh I remember years ago there was a variety, it worked for me. Yeah, and then it didn't work for nobody else, it didn't work for anybody else. And uh it was one of the early nematode varieties, uh. And we were planting that in our thrips trials, and I could make really good cotton with that variety, but nobody else could be a good idea. But but there are certain varieties that work on a farm, but you know, the more data you look at, just the more you look for that consistency. And uh, you know, the on farm trial really complements the statewide OVT, the official variety trials. It does. How many locations are the OVTs?

SPEAKER_00 11:34

So it's it's eight. Eight total? Yeah, it's eight. Four irrigated and four dry land, all on the experiment stations. Right. Small plots, right? And so it's a little bit different. The on-farm trial is more locations, less varieties. Yes. So we look at ten varieties in the on-farm program, but then this past year in the OVTs, they had 40 varieties.

OVT Vs On‑Farm: Using Both Datasets

SPEAKER_01 12:00

Yeah, so they look at more genetic potential of a variety. They're not necessarily they're just getting a comparison. It's not a lot of environments, but they can look at a lot of varieties. Yep. And a lot of times that information helps feed into what shows up in the on-farm trials.

Managing For Yield, Not Just Cutting

SPEAKER_00 12:18

Yeah, it feeds it feeds industry, right? Yeah. Because they test a lot of experimental varieties that's that we don't get to look at. And industry test does a lot of trials. That's what I'm saying. Yeah, industry does their own. Their own trials, but they use that information to choose what goes into the OVTs, and then that decides what gets advanced and made into a commercial variety, and then it comes to me to play with. Yeah. Right. And so it's uh it's a good flow of information, really, at the end of the day. But it it's a lot of information. It is a lot of information, but you look for that stability. And I mean, I whenever I look at the OVTs, I start looking for what varieties did good in all the locations. Right. Right. And so you've got some that do good in one location or the other, and you got a few that do good in in all of them. You know, there's some new stuff that's in the OVTs that I think uh is exciting. Notably, there's a couple of thrive-on varieties that look really good. And so, I mean, there's there's a lot of uh decisions to be made, and and thrive on is one that I didn't mention, insect protection. But um there's a lot of decisions that have to be made, and we can use all this to help make that decision. But again, you want to use multiple data, multiple data points, multiple years, multiple locations to make that decision. You don't want to make it based on you may not even want to make it, even though there's 25 locations on a variety trial, you may not want to make it based on the one location that was closest to your farm. Right. Because you might manage differently than the person that did the trial. That's right. Right. So it's uh, you know, it's a complicated decision. Yep. So you'll be sharing this information. It's out there, the agents have it. The agents can get it. Yeah. Uh so you know, contact the county agent. Yeah. There. Yeah. And I mean, variety selection's important. If you want to talk more nuanced type stuff, we can always do that. I mean, we can we can sit down and talk a cook. And I mean, uh, you know, you mentioned that there's a variety that worked for you. There's always growers that come up to me and are like, why are why is this variety not in the trial? You know, it's it's the best variety on my farm every year. And I I let industry decide what goes in the trial for the most part. And so they elect to put certain varieties in or not, right? And so, um, and that particular variety that that grower was talking about is the best on his farm year in and year out. I can't make it work for me. So it's just, you know, it's funny how everybody's got their little thing. And I mean, I've got varieties that I plant on the station that work for what we do, but then on the farm, that may not be what it is, you know. And so it's uh it is complicated. But, you know, multiple years, multiple locations, pick something that works for you, um, that's gonna do that tends to do above average because we got to get as much as we can out of this crop. And I mean, coming coming out of 2025, 2025 is gonna shape up to be a really good year for Georgia growers in terms of yield yield, right? And quality quality is good. Quality's really good. I would say it probably is going to shake out better financially than we expected, just from the standpoint of the yields were better. But, you know, we gotta do it again in 2026, basically, to to make this thing work. And uh, you know, there's a lot more people I think that broke even in 2025 than expected to, which is a good thing. But going into 2026, we gotta we gotta do that again. For sure. Yeah. For sure. Hey, what else? What else are you gonna talk about this year? Uh I don't know. I'm kind of I'm kind of still thinking about it, but I did put a call in to a county agent yesterday because I was just kind of curious. I think there's gonna be some more people, you know, they it's tough to get financing, I believe, to plant cotton. And I mean, it just is what it is, right? You gotta find ways to make it pencil out, and and people are gonna try to do some some stuff that we normally don't do. You know, one of those, some folks always consider planting conventional cotton, Dr. Roberts. You know, that's a decision you gotta make whether you want to plant conventional or plant the stuff that that we've been planting for the last however long. I mean, the first transgenic cotton came out in 96, right? And so it's uh no, no, the first transgenic cotton BXN. Yep, bucktral. Yep. But then BT cotton came out after that, and it's been off to the races ever since. But right, um some people are gonna toy with the idea of maybe I can do better with conventional cotton. So I planted some this past year, actually, and I I was thinking about sharing some of that. Um, the conventional cotton actually did really good. It made on irrigated ground. I had some that was looking at some funny stuff, but we had a conventional variety in there compared to two good, you know, transgenic varieties that we plant on quite a few acres. And uh that that conventional variety was right there with them, you know, in terms of yield, right? And it did it in irrigated and dry land, but that's just in Tifton. Okay. Now the the thing to take into consideration is increased potential for issues with whether it's weed management, whether it's insect management, Dr. Roberts, because you gotta you gotta stay on top of things. And this two-week trip stuff ain't gonna do. Nope. And so you gotta be ready to go if there's an issue. But I the reason I put a call into a county agent is because a grower did this last year and harvested the crop, and I called the county agent, I said, How did it go? And he said, It didn't make worth a darn. Uh same variety I planted. But he also told me, I asked, I was like, hey, how did it shake out money-wise? Said he made three applications for worms and thinks he'd have been better off just planting something that he normally plants as opposed to doing the conventional. And so at the end of the day, it kind of like health insurance, me and you've talked about health insurance. You whenever you pick a health insurance plan, you pick a high deductible or a low deductible or whatever. But at the end of the day, you're either gonna pay now or you're gonna pay later. That's right.

Conventional Cotton: Costs And Tradeoffs

SPEAKER_01 19:19

Well, you know, I was just thinking, it's been years ago, but when we had the Bull Guard, we had conventional, we had Roundup Ready, Liberty, we had Liberty Link, we had Bull Guard 2. Yeah. Well, we did something uh, I believe we did it at Midville and also in Tifton. Yeah. And uh we called it a systems trial and we you know scouted and did what we need to do to do from weed management, insect management. Uh we kept up with our input cost. And at the end of the day, we calculated uh cost of production per pound of lint. We sell cotton by the pound. We should calculate our cost by the pound. Yep. But when we looked at that, you know, there was years where we spent very little on insect control. Maybe the next year we spent a little more, depending on the location. But at the end of the day, the number one factor that influenced profitability was yield. Yield. So you know when you're if you're looking at some of these alternatives, it's gotta have the genetic potential to make yield. Right. You know, if we think about you know, cost of the seed, um let's just say a conventional variety versus a transgenic variety, maybe it's$70 an acre cheaper or$60, I don't know.$70-80.$70,$80. Let's just say let's say$80 to make the math easy. Well,$80, even uh 65 cent cotton. You know, what is that?

SPEAKER_00 21:08

Well, you that's like a hundred let's take in a couple hundred and something pounds. Let's take in a couple of other things you're gonna have to do. This particular person plowed that cotton twice. So that's two trips across the field. That's close to twenty dollars, right? Then three extra insecticide applications, and it wasn't cheap. Nope. So that's another$50,$60. By then you've spent what you saved. Yes. So what's the so what'd you gain? Well, you just got to cut on the front end, and that's another thing. Everybody talks about cutting right now. That's the wrong end. Well, everybody wants to cut on the front. That's the thing. Everybody wants to cut on the front. They want to save money on seed, they want to save money on thrips, they want to save money on seedling disease, on nematodes, whatever. Everybody want and cutting out preherbicides. Everybody wants to save money on that stuff, but then we don't talk about, hey, why are we making an unnecessary insecticide application right now? Do we actually need to spray stink bugs? Yes. We need to scout.

SPEAKER_01 22:16

I mean, that's a good question. It's a great question. I mean, there's there's opportunities. You know, I just look back at 2025. Yeah. I mean we didn't we didn't have to spray stink bugs very much on this experiment stuff. No, with but so we really ramped up our scouting of insects because of plant bugs. And we sprayed a couple. We sprayed a couple plant bugs, and then we, you know, the Jassid thing, I hated to say the word. Yeah, we weren't gonna talk about it. But we were, you know, we didn't spray as much as we normally would because, you know, we're trying to We were looking. We were looking this year, and and we probably, you know, saved a little money. Yeah. Now, it does get a little complicated when we have all of our students going into the fields taking data. A lot of times we're just gonna put something out there and we're you know, just because we plan it.

SPEAKER_00 23:13

They were scouting this past year. This year, and it was rare to have to spray them. That's right. I mean, I think I made one stink bug application. I mean, realistically, sure enough getting after them. Yeah, it was like had to get to make an application. Yeah. And so that, you know, cutting on the front end, there's a lot of stuff you do, a lot of decisions that you make at planting or right before planting that are going to impact the rest of the year. Yep. And so we got to do the things right on the front end to help us through the rest of the year.

SPEAKER_01 23:51

You go back and and you look at most of the inputs we make, even if it's plowing cotton. Sure. Just so simple. Yeah. Doing it in a timely manner. Oh, yeah. Is is efficiency. Yeah. You know, getting the most out of that input. Yeah. And and our growers know what inputs are important. Yeah. Um, I understand timeliness. Being timely is hard. Yeah. Absolutely. But hey, every grower in the state of Georgia is a hard worker. Let's work hard to be timely. And and let's make, let's get the most return on every input we make.

SPEAKER_00 24:28

Yeah, that's right. That's right. And so that's what we need to do. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 24:32

You know. I don't I don't like the term cutting and cutting. I mean, I don't like it. I mean, if you were gonna cut uh something, I mean, let's be realistic and uh Hey, let's not use stuff that we don't need to.

Timeliness, PGRs, And Practical Savings

SPEAKER_00 24:45

That's not proven. If it's not proven, why are you using it to begin with? You know? I got ill with a county agent this year. Yeah. Young man, Will Brown. I'll I'll say his name. He called me and he he said, Hey, this guy's doing this, this, this, and this. He's putting all this stuff in the tank. And I was on a tractor doing something. I can't remember. I may have been laying cotton bar or something. And I got fired up. And I said, What on earth are we doing? Putting this many things in the tank. The reason he called was because the sprayer was clogged up. And I said, Well, why'd he put all that in the tank to begin with? And I said, We don't need this. And I said, probably don't need this. And I said, Yeah, boron, probably gotta have that. And I said, But then the year was so that that cotton over in Applan County was slow to grow off early in the year because it was so wet. And he had picks in the tank. And it's like, and then a for two other fertility products. And I was just like, what are we doing? We're spending all this money on stuff that we don't know is gonna work. Well, he's friends with the dealer, they're going to the lake together next this weekend, I think it was. And yeah, he told him to put all this stuff out, and I was like, Well, tell him to take that stuff back. I was like, he don't need all that. I said, if he wants to make a trip, if he just wants to drive across the field, tell him just to drive across the field. And I said, But that that's ridiculous to put all this stuff in there. And I was like, I heard all winter long how people are trying to save money and how cotton ain't gonna work and all this stuff. And then people go do stuff like that, and it's it's aggravating.

SPEAKER_01 26:30

Well being successful in business. I've said this before, any business is about making good decisions. Uh-huh. You gotta make a good decision with everything. Yeah. So it's margins are small.

SPEAKER_00 26:45

One bad decision, there it goes. That's right. Gone. That's right. Razor thin. So, anyhow, that was uh make every input count. Yeah, gotta make our input count. Whether it's timeliness with the ones that we know are gonna work or not using stuff that we're not confident is gonna give us a return. Pretty simple. Easy as that.

SPEAKER_01 27:08

Yep. Well, you mentioned PGRs. We've been using these for a long time.

SPEAKER_00 27:13

Pay timeling with PGRs.

SPEAKER_01 27:15

They work better. Timing, timing can be more important than rate.

Leaf Hairiness, Pests, And Fit

SPEAKER_00 27:19

It is more important than rate. It is more important than rate. I'm pretty confident in that. And guess what? They work. They work. If you spray them and it don't rain in four hours, they work. Work every time. Every time. You can go out there and look at it a couple weeks later and you can see it. I mean, it's just some varieties require a little bit more than others. So just be mindful of that. Whenever you're making your variety selection decision, you know, I'd put one that's more aggressive, probably on some sorry ground. And I'd put one that if I was going to position a variety to maybe, you know, this is kind of interesting. Last year we were going into 2025, and I was on the phone with a grower, and he was asking me about varieties. And so I told him, and I was like, here's two that I think are good. And I said, probably fit you the best. And I said, and this one's more aggressive than this one. And I said, so I'd probably start at first bloom on the less aggressive one, and probably before bloom on the more aggressive one. And he said, huh. He said, that's that's he said, so you mean to tell me that I can wait to spray my PGR on this other one and it is gonna make the same as this more aggressive one. Sounds like a trip. It's a trip. I mean, that's a trip. So if you plant a less aggressive variety that has the same yield potential as some of your more aggressive varieties, which we have that, then hey, saves a trip across the field. That's$8 or whatever it is, right? So the cost of diesel fuel and wear on machinery and all that good stuff. So it's uh, you know, and then less likely to get behind some of those less aggressive varieties are a little bit easier to rein in if they start to get a little leggy on you. So little stuff like that, you know, is decisions to make. Another variety selection decision we didn't talk about, Dr. Roberts, is leaf hairiness.

SPEAKER_01 29:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:19

And I mean, I'm I've got a slide that I'm gonna show to county agents. A lot of people don't think about leaf hairiness unless we're in the tift and surrounding areas, because really we think about it in terms of white flies, and we plant smooth leaf cotton because white flies like hairy leaves, but the jazzids like smooth leaf cotton. You said it again.

SPEAKER_01 29:43

What'd I say? Jassid. Sorry. But that's true, and it's important. But if you have all things being equal, and you're not in one of these white fly areas. Yeah. I mean, what do you lose? We're not gonna plant a hairy cotton, we will plant a semi-smooth cotton. And you know, it may be a subtle difference there, but the save you a few days. It could. I mean, it could be the difference of you know it could buy you a little time. It it could save its prey. Maybe if it if it's bought you five days, you were five days closer to the finish line. That's right.

SPEAKER_00 30:19

And uh I've contacted industry and worked with them to put this list together to try to provide something. Yeah, you know, there's not much I can do, but you know, something like that could help, you know. Yeah, and so it's something to consider.

SPEAKER_01 30:37

It is something to consider. And you know, you mentioned aggressive varieties, you know, leaf pubescence, but there's so many varieties fancy with your word, yeah, hairiness, whatever. But there's there's so many varieties, but uh you know, if you're planting something new, learn as much as you can about the varieties. Oh, yeah. I mean, there's information out there. There's a lot of information out there, and uh you know, manage it appropriately.

unknown 31:06

Yep.

Deer Pressure: Measuring Loss With Maps

SPEAKER_01 31:06

Yeah. Well, I think as we go into 26, we gotta make a yield. Yeah. Um have to. And I think you've kind of covered it. Select good varieties. Yeah. Manage them well. Yeah. Yeah. I know time is money, but uh you don't have to pay for your time. Yeah, you do. Time's worth something. Time's worth something, but management.

SPEAKER_00 31:34

Yeah. That that may be the theme. It might be. It might be to making it work in 26 and being smart with inputs and and all that good stuff. I feel like I gotta talk about deer just a second.

SPEAKER_01 31:48

Well, yeah, because you got some really good stuff.

SPEAKER_00 31:51

I mean, I mean Yeah. It so first thing, in 25 we wrapped up the on-farm cages and stuff like that. That stuff is gonna be so cool. Like it is really neat data, and and I know that I've showed it at meetings and stuff like that, and people look at me like I got 10 heads because I'm putting data behind what we already know. You know, that's important. It's important. You gotta have the number. But here's the reason that it's important. This is this is why I'm excited. So we've kind of looked, and the best way to separate out the the data that my student Lance collected, and he did such a good job with it, he separated it into low, moderate, and severe deer pressure. And uh it's about a third of the locations in each one, so about ten in each group, right? And so it it it shows that the higher the deer pressure, the more damage you see, the higher the yield loss, all that good stuff, okay? We know that, all right? We know that. But here's where it applies, okay? So county agent calls a precision ag faculty member, Leo Basto, super guy, and he researches, he's good really good with big data sets, and he's funded by the Georgia Cotton Commission, and this is something that he's gonna be working on, but he uses NDVI satellite imagery, and he can map growth over a season and see delays in growth basically from deer damage. And then he can overlay that satellite imagery with yield maps and say, hey, this amount of deer damage correlates to this amount of yield loss. But so why I'm excited is because we kind of did the ground truth work, right? My crew, Lance, he he did the ground truth and work to say, all right, these are the groups we kind of need to be in. And then we can give that to Leo and say, hey, Leo, these are the groups that we're gonna work with. Can you overlay yield maps from grower fields using this data? And he'll say, Yeah, I can do that in like an hour. And so what we can do with that, and I've told him the most it's really cool, and it makes all these really pretty and colorful maps, and it makes for a neat PowerPoint slide. But the coolest part to me is showing ground truth in it. And if we have a bad deer problem, we can put that map together and say, hey, we had a problem, and it cost us this much. Hey, insurance company, can't maybe can you help us out? And here's why. You know, I mean it's it's so cool to be able to do some stuff like that. And so I'm excited to have maybe found a way to try to help out, you know, with some of this. And I mean, that's a short-term kind of fix, but you know, something else that we're doing and we've been piddling with is these repellents. I mean, we're we're gonna keep doing some of that stuff. I mean, it it's it's fascinating.

SPEAKER_01 35:20

Yeah. You know, I just thought of something you mentioned, some of that satellite imagery and yield maps, but also that would allow a grower to understand in a dollar what it means. Yeah. And you've heard just like I've heard, uh, some growers have put up fences around farms. Yep. Well, how do you really, you know, unless you know the number, right? You don't know how to do that. How can you make a good decision whether it's worth putting up a fence? Yeah. So, you know, as we go forward, there's a lot of ways that information may be used. Yep. And uh, you know, if you're willing to invest in a fence to fence a farm, you gotta know what you lost so that maybe you so you get the payback.

Repellents, Fencing, And ROI

SPEAKER_00 36:06

That's right. You know, and how long it takes to get a payback. Yeah, can you pay it back in two years? Yeah. Do you just fence off that one side of the field? Because you can see it. Uh you know where it's happening.

SPEAKER_01 36:16

A lot of a lot of opportunities for creative people. Yeah. And so innovative people.

SPEAKER_00 36:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:22

Every farmer I know is innovative.

Takeaways And County Meeting Invites

SPEAKER_00 36:24

Yeah, they are. They are. Another thing that we did on the deer stuff, Dr. Roberts, and I did some looking at is some of this variety stuff. And it's so funny. You know, people talk about, oh, well, the deer weren't a problem in the 90s, and it's because these varieties these varieties have changed, you know. So I got my hands on some old varieties, Dr. Roberts. And you didn't know about it until basically I was done. Yeah. Or you probably would have spent some more time out there, but it was old varieties like opal. You remember that one? Yes, I do. 5415. Yes. You remember that? Little old bitty bowl. Didn't peak very clean, but it you looked in the basket. Yeah. And so, I mean, it's old stuff like that. Old to me, anyways. That's not that old. And so we looked at that and then I compared it to a couple of modern varieties, 2038 and 5G and 400, just to see, you know, what was going on. And uh there was no difference in deer, deer preference. And and really, you know, a statistical difference. But if you look at the data, you could argue that they might prefer some of the older varieties. Interesting. So it's, you know, that argument, I I think there's more to it than the varieties have changed. The varieties have changed, but there's more, it's more complicated than that. And I think if you look at a lot of these trends with hunting license purchases, harvested deer reports, cotton acreage since the 90s, I mean, it you can make a pretty compelling argument that there's more deer and more cotton, and so they gotta eat something. And that's really why it's a problem now, and it may not have been in the 90s. So it's uh, you know, and people, everybody's got a theory, and uh that's that's good, and I like hearing those ideas because again, this two-way flow of information, the varieties have changed, and then I was like, well, hey, somebody else called me and said, I've got my hands on some really old cotton seed. Do you want to plant some? I said, Yeah, sure. Go out and plant it and then see this data. And it's like, okay, well, that ain't that ain't real. But you need to look. You got to look at it to prove it. So I don't know, some neat stuff coming out. We're gonna continue doing some stuff with all that and going forward, um, just to make sure, you know, some of these repellents are expensive. Uh, we've looked at them again, and they, I mean, I've said it, you've done it and said it, and it's like you can make cotton or soybeans or whatever look like a deer was never there. A checkerboard. Mm-hmm. But how expensive is it to do it and is it worth it? And so, you know, with something that's ten dollars an acre, you can put yourself out pretty quick doing something like that if you got to spray once a week. And it's just, and then after you quit spraying, they they come in and they do what they do. And so it's uh we're looking into optimizing application times with spray schedules, right? And I mean, people are on a two-week calendar, come into a field, spray herbicide. Maybe we can put it in there doing tank mix work with some of these repellents, see if if we can do some of that. You know, it's we've got plant big plans on some of that and determining the optimum use pattern if we're gonna go down. That road because it seems like that's what growers want. So we're gonna try to work something out like that. But yeah, just a lot of neat stuff going on. A lot of neat stuff going on.

SPEAKER_01 40:12

Well, I for one look forward to getting out and uh talking with folks. Yeah. Learning. Sharing information. Yep. Hearing concerns. Yep. Yep. And then trying to find solutions.

SPEAKER_00 40:27

Trying to find solutions. That's what that's our job. Yep. That's what we do. So that'll wrap up my little episode. So hey, we got a bunch more coming. A lot of people uh came in this room and talked about what they're gonna harp on this year. And so uh be on the lookout for that. Be on the lookout for county meeting dates. Come to the meetings, please. Uh, we enjoy visiting with everybody and hearing what worked and what didn't, and um sharing a meal together and just fellowshipping. Yep. So um, but if you have any questions on this or anything else, please reach out to your local county extension agent. Thank you for listening to this episode of Talking Cotton with the UGA Cotton Team. If you have any questions about anything we talked about today, or if there's anything you'd like for us to talk about in the future, please contact your local UGA County Extension Agent. And as always, you can find us on all Major Podcast platforms. Be sure to like, share with your friends, and subscribe so you can stay up to date.