Georgia Cotton Update On Rain, Plant Bugs, And Scouting

97% planted sounds like a clean headline, but the real story is what happens next when rain turns “finally catching up” into “can’t get in the field.” We’re recording on June 24 with the UGA cotton team to sort through where Georgia cotton stands right now: acres moving into squaring and early bloom, deep soil moisture finally re-wetting, and the very real management squeeze that comes with spotty showers, standing water, and delayed field work.

We get specific on cotton insect management, because this is the time when guessing gets expensive. Plant bugs are more common than they were a few years ago, and we talk sweep-net scouting, early squaring thresholds, clouded plant bugs, and how we think about protecting retention while also protecting beneficial insects. We also keep aphids and the coming aphid fungus in the back of your mind so plant bug decisions don’t create a new problem. Then we dig into programs: where Diamond fits as an insect growth regulator on immatures, why ThryvOn cotton still needs scouting, and how a premium residual product like Vertento may make the most sense later in bloom when pressure ramps up.

From there, we pivot to water and application management. We talk irrigation scheduling as cotton approaches peak July water use, why overwatering can grow a beautiful plant and still cut yield, and the calibration issues that quietly cause streaking, gaps, and lost performance in fertilizer spreaders and sprayers. We also cover responsible drone applications when fields are too wet, plus a candid look at deer damage, repellents, depredation permits, and the realities of solving a “pest problem” after dark. We close with pix and PGR timing and a simple rule: if it doesn’t need it, don’t spray it.

Subscribe on your favorite podcast platform, share this with a grower or consultant who’s making spray decisions this week, and leave a quick review so more cotton folks can find the show. What are you seeing in your fields right now?

Transcript

Welcome And Crop Progress Snapshot

SPEAKER_02 0:08

Bringing you all things cotton production and pest management. This is the Talkin' Cotton Podcast with the University of Georgia cotton team. Let's get into the whys of putting on, throwing off, and cutting out. All right. We're here this morning on uh June 24th. Got a good crowd today. Dr. Roberts, you doing good? I'm good. I'm good. Good. Dr. Porter's back with us. Dr. Porter, good to see you, man. Here. I did look at the crop progress report for the weekending June 21st, which would have been the end of last week, and uh it said we are 97% planted. I asked Dr. Roberts if he thought that number was real, and he said, Yeah, I think we're about done. I think we are about done. I think we are done. I don't know about 97% planted, but I think we are done. Yeah. 30% of the crop is squaring as of last week. I think that's about right. 3% is set in bowls. So we got some blooming cotton out there, some stuff that was planted in April. And then uh the thing that is really good is the condition of the crop, and uh they've got us at 90% fairer or better. So looking really good right now. You know, a lot of stuff going on out there. The phone, the phone calls are starting to pick up, at least for me a little bit. So seeing a lot go on out there, of course. Uh the big thing over the last couple weeks has been uh we've been catching a few more rains. And uh that's a good thing. It's definitely good. You know, you think back to where we were at the first part of May, and it was like people were worried that we weren't even gonna get planted because it was so dry. And now we couldn't finish planting because it was so wet. It's rained a lot some places a lot. Yeah. And I mean, we're just in a it seems like we're kind of in a pattern right now where them afternoon showers

Rain Swings And Moisture Profile

SPEAKER_02 2:05

just just real spotty stuff hits and it keeps you out of the field for a couple more days. But you know, with that come some challenges, but the rain is certainly welcome. We don't want to wish that away uh by any stretch of the imagination.

SPEAKER_01 2:19

But uh Do you believe that we're um because I wrote my GCC article yesterday? You believe we're still um in the drought. In Tiff County, we're five and a half inches behind on the year. You take it for what it's worth. You can look at any meeting. January 1st. Well, since well, I ran this, maybe this was cheating a little bit. I ran this from September 1st when I would consider the drought really kicked in. Does that make sense? Yeah. Just to see. Like it quit raining in September, we all say September. From that time frame to now, we're we're five and a half inches behind um on that. Now that could be different. I believe that.

SPEAKER_02 2:51

Yeah. Yeah, if it's since September, I definitely believe it.

SPEAKER_01 2:55

To tell you, we've finally like, and this is across where we've looked all the sensors and stuff, just where we can monitor down deep, we've finally re-wet the deeper profile, like to an adequate level. Does that make sense? Yeah. We were in the first couple of weeks of bloom. If you're late April, early May planted cotton, right? We're moving, that's early stuff, right? That's your lower percentages. But that's that's extracted deep moisture right now. That's down there. And so we have it available, thank goodness. And I would assume that dryer may that cotton put down deeper root systems, and so that's a good, in my opinion, that's a good place to be. That's what it was through.

SPEAKER_02 3:46

I would hope so. I mean, I did get a call from over in East Georgia on some stuff that was planted the middle part of May. And I mean, that's some you know, the same thing happened in Adipulgas, Dr. Roberts, where some stuff got planted second week of May, and then it was it was coming up, but like as it came up, yeah, it got hammered and so like the tap root died, and it was putting out feeder roots and stuff. But I mean, some cotton that I'm getting calls about is just sitting there right now, and and a lot of it's got to do with some of this heavy rainfall that we've been catching regular and cloudy days and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_01 4:23

Well, we got it up in some of the younger cotton that wasn't past that stage, just kind of got to your what you said earlier. For about three weeks now, we've been getting in across heavy, heavier rainfalls, right? It's been there's water still standing out um around, like you drive around and look in fields. There's water still standing in fields and some washouts and stuff that I hate to happen, but we needed some water too at the same time.

SPEAKER_02 4:44

Oh, yeah. Well, so I did I pulled up the uh hey weather monitoring network, Georgia weather monitoring network, and looked from April 1st as opposed to looking since September. And uh right now in Tifton, we're at 14.3 inches, and that's ahead of where we were last year. It's really right on par with 24 and above 2023, and it's a it's above average.

SPEAKER_01 5:10

So for the spring, we're above average already, Paul. It's just April. Just took us time to read. I think the thing, and I heard people talking yesterday, and I get the monitoring data daily and stuff from some of the test wells in the southwest. We're still deficient in some of our surface water sources and some in our aquifers. And I'm not saying that we're in a bad place, but we're deficient in catching up. Yeah. Right. And we need to get on caught up. I'm I'm glad we've gotten to where we're at. How about that? When we if you go back and revisit where we were talking in late April, it was a very bad situation to be in, and this helped rectify itself.

SPEAKER_02 5:40

Yeah, for sure. And I mean, looking at where we were in terms of planting corn and using pivots and stuff like that, and and then moving into cotton and peanuts, and so we're we're definitely in a better spot than what we were in. But it does create challenges with getting in the field and being timely with with weed control or or insect management

Plant Bug Pressure And Sweep Net Rules

SPEAKER_02 6:01

or whatever it is. Dr. Roberts, I got an interesting call yesterday about mixing uh Roundup uh orthine and uh staple. No, no. Roundup orthine and something else over cotton that was blooming. The orthine was for plant bugs. Yeah. Okay. And I told them, I was like, I don't know about blooming cotton. I don't know that I'd do that. But they and they said, all right, that's what I tell them. They said, that's all I needed to know. I said, okay, so uh what what's the word on on insects out there, Dr. Roberts? I mean, I know plant bugs have picked up in the last couple of years.

SPEAKER_00 6:36

Plant bugs have definitely picked up, and uh that's primarily in areas where we deal with them on a more frequent basis now. Yep. That'd be southwest Georgia, north of Tifton, Dooley County. Yeah, oh yeah. But uh numbers have increased, and and there's some treatments being made. It seems to be holding, you know, in the past five years. It seems like our earliest planted cotton this time of year. You get them in square and cotton. We get them in square, you know. Once cotton begins to square, it becomes attractive to a plant bug. And I don't know if we concentrate them on this early planted cotton, but we go through this every year. Um, you know, some of our April cotton is just we have a big burst of plant bugs, and uh, you know, that's that's fine. We just need to be uh, you know, people need to be running sweep nets. Yep. You know, we run so many more sweep nets now than we did five years ago. You know why? Because we got plant bugs. We have to. Yeah. I mean, we even do on the station, on all our stuff. Well, well, I do. You need to assign farms to your students again. I know. But I know but we look good on the station. We have really good retention, very low plant bugs, and and I've talked to several consultants and agents where plant bugs are low, but I've also talked to consultants and agents where plant bugs are high.

SPEAKER_02 8:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:03

But uh again, get out there. The first two weeks of squaring, we're looking at eight plant bugs on 100 sweeps. We're picking up some clouded plant bugs, which is early. Yeah. Um, and what do we do with a clouded plant bug? Hey, they count one and a half times. One and a half times. And uh jokers are fast. Yeah, and they they're just more damaging than a tarnished plant bug. But yeah, you know, same products that that do a good job on plant bugs are gonna do a good job on on clouded. And uh, you know, we want to maintain 80% retention and and we want to protect beneficials early. We want to protect beneficials early, so we really need to you know try to use some of those softer chemistry. Softer chemistry. And and the other thing when we're making these plant bug decisions, we need to think about aphids. Now, I've looked at some aphids. I've looked at most of our cotton this week on the station, and we have a few. But I've talked to some folks where, hey, when's have you heard of the fungus? And if someone asked me about the aphid fungus, that means they got a pretty good slug of aphids in a field. Yeah. But you know, we're still a ways away from the fungus. Typically that's first part of July. Yeah. We have seen aphids.

SPEAKER_02 9:23

News flash. Yeah. First part of July is next week, boss. Yeah. Well though, we're not a good ways away.

SPEAKER_00 9:29

Well, we're a week away. We're a week away. It's right around the corner. It may be a little later this year. Um, you know, there's a lot of debate whether that fungus is density dependent. Now that's some fancy words, but but what I mean by that, you do have to have a population of aphids, you know, to become infected and get those fungus spores just going across the South Georgia. Um, but we haven't had uh any reports of that yet, uh, but I think we still need to build some aphids before we see that. Yeah. But just as a reminder, you know, we typically see the fungus start in the southwest part of our state and then moves north and east. I mean, it's from the time we detect it, it'll probably be somewhere in southwest Georgia, Decatur, Mitchell, Semino, early, somewhere down there. It may be another seven to ten days before it gets to East Georgia. Yeah. Before it gets to Midville on the station. But we we just really don't uh spray many aphids in the state. Yeah. We can't get a consistent yield response. We've worked on that several different occasions. Uh now, granted, there are gonna be fields that are super stressed from aphids, yeah. And we can control that stress.

SPEAKER_02 10:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:46

But when you're making these plant bug sprays to get back on my original point, if you have aphids in the field, why not use a product that's gonna give you some efficacy on aphids? Uh you know, mo uh we got several options. Uh you know, transforms, very good on aphid-centric, pretty good on aphids. And uh you know, emitacloprid, which is not great on plant bugs, it's not great on aphids, but sometimes it's good enough. Yeah. But those are the top products we're looking for

Diamond, ThryvOn, And Vertento Fit

SPEAKER_00 11:17

now. And the other thing I think we need to start thinking about is uh the use of diamond. And and we've really seen an uptick in diamond, uh really starting last year, the use of diamond. And diamond is an insect growth regulator. But diamond is active on the immature stages of plant bugs. And you know, where we use that, you know, it's not a cure-all, but what it does, it makes plant bugs a whole lot easier to manage once we get into bloom and we start dealing with immature stages. So, you know, people that have used diamond, you know, the ideal timing of diamond, if we knew the day plant bug eggs were gonna start hatching, we'd spray it that day. We'd spray it that day. All right, we don't know that. So we do have a couple little guidelines to think about. If if you're in a historical area and you've dealt with plant bugs consistently the last several years, about first bloom is a good timing to put that first application of diamond out. And we want to put two. Uh the other criteria uh that I think works pretty well, if you make a second application for plant bugs, go ahead and add diamond to that second application. Then diamond's not going to do anything to the adults, so it's an add-on. And you're kind of laying some residual in that plant to help us as we move forward.

SPEAKER_02 12:51

But so if you're making that second application on adults, yes. The first application, they're kind they're migrating in from something. They're they are. The second one, they're still migrating. Yeah, they're still migrating in on the second one, but you're more confident that hey, they're dumping eggs in. They've dumped eggs twice.

SPEAKER_00 13:09

Yeah. I mean, they're gonna dump eggs before we kill them. Right. So, you know, it's set up and it just makes sense. And, you know, in an area like we are, in in many parts of Georgia, it's plant bugs are still not consistent. Uh-huh. So those criteria you could use there. And I do want to encourage everyone. I mean, gosh knows we're all looking for jazzets. But let's make sure we look for plant bugs too.

SPEAKER_02 13:34

Yeah, don't forget about some of the other stuff we gotta deal with. Yep. Hey, real quick, I'm curious, is it do you think it's more important to use like I know on your second application, like if you're making a second application on square and cotton, you probably got a problem and you need to use diamond if it's necessary, right? Do you think it's more important to use it early or save it for some of those situations where you're getting in a tight late, like where you're dealing with them in blooming cotton. Do you get what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_00 14:06

So so diamond's got good residual. Okay. And one of the things we have to think about is we have continued plant growth. And if you use it too early, if you use it on your first first shot, uh first application. First shot. Yeah, I don't like that word. I really don't. I don't like that. I hate it. But uh you know, you're putting diamond on foliage that's gonna be in the very bottom of the canopy. It's just not gonna be there as that plant grows. And uh so that's why I think the second shot are closer to first bloom. I said that word. The second application. And Dr.

SPEAKER_02 14:45

Roberts ain't used to taking two shots, he's used to taking one. Just one.

SPEAKER_00 14:49

But uh I don't like any of them. You know, it was up to me, would never spray an insect. That's right, would never need to spray an insect in cotton. That's right. But I don't I think if you're too early, you don't get all the value out of that application. Yeah, that's the point I'm making. And again, you know, if you're going in a diamond program, you're gonna be looking at two applications about two weeks apart, and you're just layering that residual in the canopy. Yeah. And then you got it it works well, yeah. You know, but it's not a cure-all, it just makes it manageable. And we've looked at some stuff that kind of got away from folks. Yeah, and uh, you know, we don't want that. No, no. Uh the other thing I will mention is uh I've been getting some questions on Thrive On. And uh we still need to be scouting Thrive On Cotton for plant bugs. Yep. I talked to Seth McAllister and Carroll County, you know, they were exceeding threshold and retention had dropped on Thrive. Thrive on. Well, guess what? Thrive on has very little impact on the adults. Yep, especially them ones that are migrating in. We'll typically see a few less uh plant bugs on Thrive on adults, but they still can cause damage. And several years ago, you know, we had some really high populations at uh Bowen Farm.

SPEAKER_02 16:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:09

We saw a yield response from spraying Thrive on Cotton. Yeah. Spraying plant bugs. So it can happen. Need to be scouting. Um I also had a question of should we put diamond on thrive on cotton? And I thought that was an interesting question. Yeah. And my answer is no. Yeah. You know, Thrive on what it does for plant bugs and what diamond does for plant bugs are pretty similar. Yeah. Neither are curious, both have some activity on the immatures, and they make it manageable. Yeah. So I don't think we use diamond on thrive on.

SPEAKER_02 16:44

So what I so talking about a plant bug program and residual diamond and stuff like that, that there's another new product that was kind of the hot thing to talk about in the wintertime, besides Jassid, right? But um, a lot of questions surrounding Vertento and like where it may fit in a plant bug management program, right? So, and and in my mind, you know, it it's got a similar fit. It's got activity on adults, right? Oh, yeah. But it has a fit like Diamond does because of their residual well, potentially.

SPEAKER_00 17:20

And uh, you know, we've worked with Isocycloserum. I I it took me a while to be able to say that, but I said it. Um we've worked with that for several years, and you know, it's uh a premium product. Oh yeah, a premium product. But it's a premium product, but it brings a lot to the table. It does. Um you're allowed up to two applications. But I really think the best fit for most Georgia growers is we're looking at the back end of this crop. You know, if we can get to the fourth or fifth week of bloom, that would be a great place to utilize residual activity.

SPEAKER_02 18:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:05

And Vertento does have really good residual activity. Yeah. Really good.

SPEAKER_02 18:10

But it doesn't make it's like diamond, where like if you paint it, if you paint a crop right now at square and it'll stay on the tissue that it's on.

SPEAKER_00 18:18

But it does not move within the plant. Right. It'll go through the leaf, translaminar, but some activity because it's good on mites. Yeah. But it's not systemic. It's not systemic. I really think you know a great place is in late bloom. And we'll figure a lot of this out as growers use it. Yeah. But again, it's really active on plant bugs, it's really active on stink bugs, it's very good on mites. And there may be a situation to use it on plant bugs, but I I would try to sit on that.

SPEAKER_02 18:51

Yeah, reserve it for that plant bug problem uh third week of bloom or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 18:56

Well, or if it's the second week of bloom, yeah, you know, um it it's a product where we can go in there and and you know, we'll time will tell if we can kind of almost reset the system and and try to regain control of something that's about to get away from us. But those are all things that you know, we can't always make observations like that in small plots. And and when we start putting this on a lot of acres, then agents, consultants, growers start seeing benefiting.

SPEAKER_02 19:34

The potential, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:35

Seeing potential or seeing um Hey, it's not gonna work here. Seeing things that, yeah, I'm not sure this was the best time. And so we need to know my thought is to try to use other products to get to that time. To get to that time to use an application of vertento. But again, you know, you can put two applications, and I'm sure there will probably be some growers who'll see if they can run a vertento program with two applications and just see what happens.

SPEAKER_02 20:05

You know, but it's all part of a program, right? So I mean, whether you if you decided not to plant Thrive on utilizing diamond earlier, potentially, and then switching that to the end of the season or whatever it is as necessary.

SPEAKER_00 20:21

You know, I think we're trying to do what we call a systems trial this year, and just uh trying to come up with various programs, different pest spectrums, and we're looking to see how that impacts JACID populations. It's going to be really interesting to see. But you can come up with a lot of programs. You're a weed scientist, trained as a weed scientist. You're a great agronomist now. Hey, thanks. Now, I've I've got you to that point.

SPEAKER_01 20:56

You're really good. A lot of training. What do I just learn? I learned an entomologist trains you to train you to be an agronomist. So now I'm clear. Hey, we're all agronomists. Hey, hey.

SPEAKER_02 21:05

He's an agronomist. Most good extension entomologists would probably make a hell of an agronomist, I think. The same thing about that for anybody. But he wouldn't apply. He would argue that just because you're a good agronomist doesn't mean you'd be a good entomologist. He's getting there. I've been trained.

SPEAKER_00 21:25

I've been trained. But anyway, we're kind of belaboring the point here, but the the point is, you know, it's just like you know, farmers are um deal with weeds every year, and they know where they have to tailor a program on a certain farm because of a specific weed. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:42

You know, you may have the same field, but you could have two or three programs that maybe Oh, well, we've got you know, farms where we've got certain problems and farms where we don't, and where like at the pivot, we've got multiple issues. And It's a little different. We do some things different there than we do at Bowen. At Bowen, where there aren't really that many problematic weeds. That's right. Our most problematic weed is volunteer peanuts, probably. Yep, but that's not bad. Yeah. And so it's like, okay, you can control that, but where you got pigweed and morning glory and tropical spiderwort or bangle day flower, you got to do something a little different. A little different. You know, so we're uh we tailor that program to that individual field, and it's the same with plant bugs. Same with plant bugs. You tailor your program for what's necessary for the farm you're on.

SPEAKER_00 22:33

All right. So we talked about insects. I do want to finish up real quick about jazz just update, folks.

Jassid Finds And Aphid Lookalikes

SPEAKER_00 22:39

So in the last since our last update when we did the double take. Yeah, double take.

SPEAKER_02 22:45

Somebody told me they really like that.

SPEAKER_00 22:47

On June 10th. It was two weeks ago. Yeah, two weeks ago today, right after we did the podcast, literally my crew found jazz on some ochre in Tifton. And uh well, since then, we've started picking up very low numbers on cotton in Tifton. And when I say very low numbers, I think we've caught maybe a dozen. And that's looking hard because we're going through hundreds of plots.

SPEAKER_02 23:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:15

So Kale Cloud down in Grady County. I wasn't able to do an end of the last day. Well, Cale was out with a with a grower and they were sweeping plant bugs. And uh guess what? It was June 18th. June 18th. He found two jazz. Yep. Again, that's where we are. Yeah. Nothing to be alarmed about. Nothing to be alarmed about. Um Isaac, the great Isaac, superstar. Down in Quincy, Florida, my counterpart down there. Yeah. And they're seeing a little reproduction. But again, it's low. Yeah. Um Scott Graham over in Auburn. Yeah. Um up around Shorter. Yeah. Um picked up a single jazz. Up there around Victory Land. Yeah. Victory Land. I don't know, Victory Land. But again, when I say detected, that's what we mean. They found one.

SPEAKER_02 24:12

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 24:13

And he said it was a combination of eight man hours, and they found a single jazzet. But that's important for us to know. Yeah. It just means there are jazzids around. Yep.

SPEAKER_02 24:24

And you got to keep that in mind. You know, you brought up with plant bugs, you got to think about aphids. Hey, yeah. With plant bugs, just keep it in the back of your mind. Yep. Well, it doesn't matter what you're doing. That's right. Keep it in the back of your mind.

SPEAKER_00 24:36

That's right. So you know, Kale sent me a picture, and people that are, you know, walking fields, you're you'll see these individual plants just melted down with aphids. They'll be yellow and the leaves will be cranked, crinkled. Well, he took a picture of that plant and sent it to me, and he made a comment I won't say. But it made him nervous. Uh-huh. Yeah. But then he went and flipped those leaves over and it was just loaded with aphids. But you know, I mean, it just tells me or shows us that we're all looking. Like he saw that plant, he's like, ooh, is that Hopperburn? Uh-huh. Well, he went over and checked it. It was aphids. Yeah. So but that's good.

SPEAKER_02 25:15

That's a good thing. And and like you said, I mean, it's good that everybody's looking, but we don't need to overlook something else.

SPEAKER_00 25:23

Yep. So anyway, that's where we're all on insects and you know, all's good.

SPEAKER_02 25:29

Hey, all's good, man. Yep. In the neighborhood.

Irrigation Planning Without Overwatering

SPEAKER_02 25:32

Yep. Wes, what you uh you're not getting calls about irrigation, surely.

SPEAKER_01 25:38

No, it's my call as you said yours started to pick up. Mine, I think, have finally slowed down a little bit. I was trying to think of what they were all.

SPEAKER_02 25:44

It started raining, man.

SPEAKER_01 25:46

It started raining. We slowed down. We're not in what I would I should have figured in. Yeah, we stopped planting. Well, we should have a lot of things.

SPEAKER_02 25:53

Well, yeah, we're yes, we're nearly we're done.

SPEAKER_01 25:56

Yep, so uh we're done um officially. We'll say that. And um so those calls have stopped. The um irrigation right now we're sitting pretty good. I would say the I've gotten a few, not in the past week or so, because I think we can't get in the field. A few calibration calls on um this has been on sprayer stuff, different things like that. Um we had some fertilizer stuff earlier in the year, but that probably wasn't on cotton now. I'm trying to think back of whatnot I've gotten. Um what I would say moving forward right now, though, is that we're sitting pretty good right now. We are in an excess of uh needed moisture, which I'm not complaining about, but just keep that in mind. We're in excess, as you mentioned earlier, we potentially stalled some cotton that's sitting out there, but it'll come out of that. Um right, you look, I think we got a chance to rain Friday afternoon, and after that, I think, you know, the rest of this week where we're no rain again. And I don't know what next week looks like. I think we had it when I looked the other day at the long, longer term, you know, with those predictions, we had like an equal chance of above and below. So we're an average scenario. And what we usually happens to us is we get drier in July. I don't know if that's still gonna happen or not this year with that El Nino forming. And I did see a graph Super El Nino. Well, yeah, that's what it is. Super El Nino, and I see the graph that showed surface water temperatures where they track that. And the two I don't know if y'all have seen this, but the 2026 surface water temperature is higher than it's been in like I don't know, any uh El Nino phase in a while.

SPEAKER_02 27:21

So that's I don't look at all that.

SPEAKER_01 27:24

I just breeze through it to see are we gonna get rain or not, right? I don't know what it all means. Bob knows what it means. But um if it if that's true, what they predicted is we'll get dry again in like July, August, September, but then this winter we'll get back wet. And so if I'm long-term planning for my irrigation management right now, what that tells me, whether it does or doesn't, I know that most of our cotton will be moving into peak water use in July. It always does. We I won't say always, but in most cases, especially if we're monitoring, we feel like we can't keep up with irrigation during July. Because what we see, and I mentioned it earlier, we see that deep moisture that's down there start to deplete and not replenish, and not replenish without rainfall, just because irrigation doesn't infiltrate that deep the way we we apply it and the way we're able to get it down, our capacities, right? And list goes on and on. So when we talk about it that way and we start looking at it, just be ready for that to potentially happen, right? Let's plan for a potentially drier July. Don't overwater it. I do mention that we're at a surplus of water right now because what happens if we overwater the crop? We're gonna turn into a vegetative growth stage, create a beautiful plant. And uh Snyder showed that in plenty of stuff. I've got data that showed that I think all of us that have done irrigated studies have shown that in the past that we can grow a beautiful plant and we reduce our yields because the plants put a lot of energy and uh on vegetative production. So I feel like we're sitting on the cusp of that. So don't make a bad decision and irrigate when you don't need to to and put even more moisture out there. So I'd say keep that in mind. But but be ready as we start to see um moisture deplete, shallow, and then deeper to uh to start you know applying irrigation again. I mean, we're there and we'll most likely need it. So that'd be my biggest thing. Um, if we are talking about it, we're in that timeline. Um, if you got calibration questions, reach out to your agent, we'll get them done. Because if you are doing dry or liquid fertilizer applications, make sure you do it right. Um, I will say, okay. So we said that and I'm starting to go through

Calibration Fixes: Sprayers, Spreaders, Drones

SPEAKER_01 29:23

it. I had a really good case last week. I'm not gonna say where. If they listen to podcasts, they'll know. A fertilizer spreader, uh, I don't know what crop. Um I asked him and he wasn't sure and what blends. It was funny, he um he thought, and this happens a lot, he thought he was on a 30-foot swath.

SPEAKER_02 29:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:40

No, I'm sorry, he thought he was on a 45-foot swath, he's actually applying a 30-foot swath.

SPEAKER_02 29:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:44

That's what I mean. You see what I mean? Sorry, I said it back because he thought he was on a 45 and was applying a 30-foot. So he was gapping 15. And I mean, I think we all remember last year, Glenn was still here too. We talked about like I don't know why it seemed like it was so bad last year, but we had a lot of streaking issues showing up. And I'm wondering this year, since we're wet now when a lot of our fertilizer's out or sitting there, yeah, or making applications that those some of those issues may show back up if we're not um on par with our applicators. So again, it's tough to try to do. I I hate to put an agent in a scenario where somebody calls them and says, hey, I feel like something's not right with my dry fertilizer spreader right now. I'm doing my final application or whatever. Can you come out and you put him under pressure or put him or her under pressure? But I will, you know, we need to look at getting those right. You know, we don't want to be the guy that thinks we're at 30 foot and we're at 45. But that one got rectified, thank goodness. They figured it out very quickly and fixed that problem. And I'm that's a success case right there, right? So do you increase the speed of the you can keep increased spinner speed? That's what they did. He he was running at a recommended speed. That was the thing. He was running at like six to seven hundred RPM and he bumped it up to like nine hundred and got a target rate. And uh, we even graphed it. The agent I sent him a template and I've got a spread. I don't share it publicly much, I do it with agents just because there's some it's not locked. You can go in there and mess a bunch of stuff up if you're not careful. But you know, I can share it with agents, and they can, if they got a scale, they can weigh the fertilizer across the whips that they done it, put in the whips, they caught it out, and we can graph it and see what your pattern looks like and see where we need improvement and all that stuff. So we did that, and um, it didn't look bad. He wasn't, I think the agent was looking for a perfect curve.

SPEAKER_02 31:20

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:20

And I mean, you know, just like it's not gonna be, I mean it looked pretty good, it was within tolerable range by the time he worked with them and got it there, and it was within this 45 foot after that point. Again, to your point, he sped up his spinner disc speeds. Now, on the flip side of that, last year um I had a a call that somebody thought they were doing 45 foot and they were throwing it 90 foot. Huh? Yeah, they were running spinner disc speed at like 1800 RPM. Yeah, and so the same thing, it's the opposite that you're thinning it out so much, you would say, hey, well, I'm bevel overlapping, but you may be, but I don't really that's probably really messing your rate up, right? Because you're creating dust. Let's be honest. If you're dropping dry fertilizer on a 1800 uh RPM spinner disc, you're probably breaking everything up and not really getting it, even though it may be throwing out to 90 foot, it's the big particles that are making it. It's not a good uniform application. So I would say that, and then on your liquid side, um, just keep that in mind. Same way, you know, look up your formula, do a good calibration on it, look at the density of fertilizer that's there. And Camp, a question I got last year, Philip asked you about this, and we got into the weed science talk for a minute, because I think similarly, we're wet right now, it's gonna be hard to stay on top of weed control the next couple of weeks, and so we're gonna be doing a lot of spraying when we get the sprayers back out in the field with hooded sprayers last year. They can be difficult to calibrate because we got two or three different nozzles potentially uh applying different rates under there.

SPEAKER_02 32:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:41

Uh, I did write a blog post last year on that um that talks us and walks us through it. So if you've if you're in that scenario and you're questioning how to calibrate that system, let your agent know and I can get them the information they need. Um, that's critical too. So we stay on top of our weed control. Um we are doing some, um, I don't know how deep I want to go into it on the podcast. We're not doing it on cotton yet, we're doing peanuts, we're doing some drawn weed control work, um efficacy compared to tractors. First application looked really good. Um, we showed some of our agents. We had some, there's some hiccups out there with it. I think uh you'll run into with drawn applications. But if you if you come to that, like I've gotten some questions. Hey, I can't get in the field with the sprayer right now, and that's when we start using what I would call unconventional methods, right? So just do your due diligence, make sure it's calibrated, make sure we've primed it, make sure that you've done mixing right, make sure that you're matching your GPA rate and all that stuff.

SPEAKER_02 33:30

Hey, and make sure you're not spraying stuff that doesn't need to be sprayed out of a drone.

SPEAKER_01 33:33

There you go.

SPEAKER_02 33:34

I mean that's a percent.

SPEAKER_01 33:35

That's a given. That's a given. You would think so. Well, I know.

SPEAKER_02 33:38

You would think so, but you don't, you know, there's a lot of scrutiny around certain products, and you know, you just don't want to put anything in a bad situation. Yeah. Right. And so, I mean, just don't do, just don't do uh just don't be irresponsible.

SPEAKER_00 33:53

That's there you're right. That's a bad decision. Don't make a bad decision. Don't make a bad decision.

SPEAKER_01 33:58

I had don't put us in a bad spot. I can't remember. Um, I had a weird email or call a week or two ago from a company wanting to reach out, and I can't remember what even happened with it because it's been two or three weeks ago and it's been so much between. But to like drawing applicators and license people and stuff and I want contacts to them, and that's the thing. You know, if you're using somebody, I would use who you need to use, but I would try my best to get a license drawn.

SPEAKER_02 34:23

Yeah, get somebody who's legal.

SPEAKER_01 34:25

I mean, it's a it's a hard process to go through the legality of it, right? And but the guys that have done it, I appreciate their due diligence that they've done it, and then they're gonna follow what they're supposed to because it's you know it falls back on them. There's gonna be repercussions if they don't. So, you know, heights and widths and different things like that. Just make sure it's done right if you if you need to go down that path. Um, trying to think anything else big right now. I think you know, we're sitting, we're sitting all right. It's a good place to be right now. Yeah. Um, we'll see where we're at in two weeks. But two weeks again, that percentage of crop moving through square and into bloom is going to be up. We're gonna be above a right now, early planted crop, we're an inch per week water requirement. Yeah, take that for what it's worth. Inch per week. That'll kick up to about an inch and a half at PC.

SPEAKER_02 35:07

Hey, here in Tifton, we've gotten our inch this week. Yep. There you go. I mean, that's right. You know. Hey, you know you were talking about we're done planting. I'm not. Yeah. Yeah, somebody called me about that yesterday.

SPEAKER_00 35:20

Want to know when we're gonna do something?

SPEAKER_02 35:21

They said, Did y'all plant that? I said, I said, No, you know, if we planted it, it'd come up.

SPEAKER_00 35:28

Well, we left off that little spot at the bottom of the hill. Yep. And it's wet. It's wet, yeah. Oh man, it's wet.

SPEAKER_02 35:35

You think we can get in next week, maybe? If it don't rain, it don't rain.

SPEAKER_00 35:39

We were going to put stakes out uh yesterday.

SPEAKER_02 35:43

Somebody sunk up to their knees. Uh yeah.

unknown 35:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 35:47

Hey, well, what does weed control look like out there?

SPEAKER_00 35:50

Pretty good. Really? Yeah. It's gonna have to be touched up before we plant, but uh no, it's still holding good.

SPEAKER_02 35:56

Yeah, I sprayed Liberty just by now, I mean some more peanuts come up. Okay. Yeah, but that's expected. Yeah. How did cotton look out there at Ponder? Everything looked good? It's looking good. Cotton get danged up.

SPEAKER_00 36:09

It probably needs needs some uh needs a little TLC, you think? No, it looks good.

SPEAKER_02 36:14

Needs a little fertilizer.

SPEAKER_00 36:16

It's getting close.

SPEAKER_02 36:18

One thing I started getting calls about, hey, you know, talking about how much it's rained and and stuff and kind of slow on the farm. I was on a grower's place last week down in Mitchell County, and this grower told me, I said, What you working on? He said, I'm working on my peanut combine. I said, Peanut combine? I said, it's it's June. He said, he said, it's wet. He said, I can't do nothing else. I said, that's great. You know, trying to get ahead of everything.

Deer Damage, Repellents, And Permits

SPEAKER_02 36:45

But I was actually on this guy's place to look at a deer problem. And he had a problem. He had a deer problem. I mean, it was 120 acres that about got eat up and on three different farms. And so it was uh not a fun one, but I have started getting some calls in the last week or so about deer repellents and what you know, products and rates and and stuff like that, and just you know, I I will encourage folks a plug for another podcast that I do, the Cotton Specialist Corner. I recorded an episode yesterday with Dr. Corey Heaton out of out of Clemson. And if there's anybody who knows how to use a deer rappel in his hand.

SPEAKER_01 37:27

Corey's good. Did you know Corey and I lived uh Corey and I lived on two separate uh university farms when we were in college? I lived on the chicken farm, he lived on the hog farm. I remember. So we knew each other. Yeah, we were basically, he was I was uh undergrad and he was working on a master's or PhD at the time. Yeah. We lived like a mile apart around. We were responsible for security on the farm, so we'd hop on the gator and circle through at night and chat with each other and all. Yeah. Chicken farm. Huh? A chicken farm. We lived on the chicken farm and he lived on the hog farm. The hog farm's not in operation anymore, unfortunately.

SPEAKER_02 37:58

Yeah. No, I'd I don't know that I'd want to live on either one of those farms.

SPEAKER_01 38:04

Rent was good. When I moved in, when I moved in, the house was a three-bedroom house, and there's three of us there. It was $240 a month total. I paid $80 a month. Oh my gosh. That was a long time ago. When I left, it was a long time ago.

SPEAKER_02 38:19

I pay, and whenever I lived in Auburn, I paid like $300 and something a month. That's still cheap. Yeah. Well, now the houses that I lived in were about uninhabitable.

SPEAKER_01 38:28

Well, go see the chicken farmhouse.

SPEAKER_02 38:31

One of the houses that I lived in in Auburn, I killed a possum inside the house.

SPEAKER_01 38:36

That's about like where we live. We stapled uh in the wintertime. You know how you would staple old chicken houses the plastic around? We stapled our time. Yeah, we are po core at college students, man. We never run the heat. That's good.

SPEAKER_02 38:48

We had condensation on the inside of the window frozen one time. So that's a pretty similar, pretty similar situation.

SPEAKER_01 38:55

We learned how to live cheap to make it through, didn't we?

SPEAKER_02 38:57

Yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_00 38:58

That's a good podcast, Cotton Specialist Corner.

SPEAKER_02 39:01

Yeah, but I I'm looking forward to listening to that. Yeah, I recorded one with Corey. It was just me and Corey, and we talked for an hour and 20 minutes. Corey's good, I like it. Yeah, about deer and uh deer repellents and depredation permits and shooting more does. I mean, that's real. We talked about all that. But um, you know, the deer repellents, I I've seen them work. Dr. Roberts, you've seen them work. I mean, I think just about any any product, there's one or two out there that I think maybe don't work. There's one or two maybe that I wouldn't use, even though they do work. But, you know, just if you're going down that road of looking at using a deer repellent, reach out to your county agent, of course. But, you know, make sure that uh it's compatible with some of the stuff you're putting in a tank. Where I got a new student this year, he's from Clemson, Kyle Smith, and he uh he's doing some tank mix work with some of these deer repellents. And some of those things don't jive too well in those three-liter bottles, Dr. Roberts. But it's a whole lot different putting something in a three-liter bottle than it is a 600-gallon tank and spraying it out of a machine. So just want to make sure that people test all that stuff before you put it in the tank because we don't want people to have to dedicate a bunch of time to cleaning out a sprayer, especially whenever we're trying to dodge these showers and stuff like that. But seeing deer repellents work in a bad situation, you know, it's not gonna be a silver bullet. You're not gonna spray it once or twice and get out of a jam like that. But, you know, it's one of those things. It's all about with deer, it's all about behavior modification. And and, you know, with repellents, that's a piece of the puzzle. With depredation permits, that's a piece of the puzzle. And just you'd want them to know that they're not welcome there, you know, and that's that's kind of a difficult thing to do, but um, you know, you can use multiple tools to do that. I actually started shooting on permit uh last week on a field, and uh I can tell you, you know, talking to talking to growers about it and them telling you, hey, I don't like that, you know, that's one thing. But then to go out there and sit out there at night and get eat up by mosquitoes and just scanning a dark field looking for deer. I mean, I love to deer hunt. Y'all, anybody who listens to this podcast knows that. My two friends here know that. But sitting out there at night, getting eat up by mosquitoes is not fun.

SPEAKER_01 41:19

It's rough, especially in the summertime. We yeah, I have not been on a permit, but we used to hog hunting a lot like that. I've just been busy the past few years and haven't done it. And you set up in those fields, and one night we counted like 15 or 20 deer. This is probably four or five years ago when Jackson was either young or before he was born when I had a little more time. And the mosquitoes right at that like sunset into that first hour after, and the deer flies are just all over. You're the you're the source of their food right then.

SPEAKER_02 41:44

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:45

Yeah, it's uh it's a job, yeah. It's all glamorous from people that don't do it to you. That's the thing.

SPEAKER_02 41:51

Like, I I posted a picture on on Twitter and uh it got a lot of attention, but there was one guy who was like, Oh, I wish I had that problem. And I was like, I don't think I don't think you do. So you you don't understand what's going on here.

SPEAKER_00 42:04

I mean, there's you can't take joy in doing that. No, you're doing a job. Yeah, I mean it's a pest.

SPEAKER_02 42:12

I mean, it's a pest problem, right? And so you you gotta think about it that way. And uh I got home from shooting on permit, and my wife started asking a lot of questions, and I told her that it's a pest problem and you gotta take care of the pest problem, and she didn't like it. She said, I'm gonna quit asking no more questions. Yeah, she said, I'm done asking questions. So, you know, you do what you gotta do to protect your crop, right? And make the crop. So, and in a year like 26 or really any of the last really since I started, you know, it's been kind of tough for cotton, but you know, you gotta do what you gotta do to make the crop, right? And get everything you can out of it.

PGR Timing And Rainfast Reality

SPEAKER_02 42:47

But some people are thinking about spraying a little picks, Dr. Roberts. Did you spray some? I did not. Because it didn't need it. I tried to take you two weeks ago it didn't need it.

SPEAKER_00 42:56

I know it doesn't need it.

SPEAKER_02 42:58

I mean, God, I want it to be green. Golly. Yeah, some people are gonna start spraying picks here in the next couple weeks or so. And you know, some of some of this cotton that's uh growing off slow wouldn't be in no hurry to fix any of that cotton. You know, a lot of these cloudy days and and uh hard rain, hey, that's doing it for you. You know, that's slowing growth down for you enough. You don't want to slow it down anymore. But man, I you know, I I really don't like to be too heavy on on PGR anyways. I'm a pretty lenient uh PGR person, Dr. Roberts. Sometimes it'll bite me where I don't have history. Most time it doesn't. Most time it doesn't. But you know, on some of this April planted cotton, it just grows slower than than some of our May planted or June planted cotton. And so it may not need it. You know, you just need to, it's the same with plant bugs or or deer or jazzet or aphid or whatever. You just need to be out there in the field. Yeah, they're looking, make good decisions. And look, if it don't need it, Dr. Roberts wanted to spray some because he wanted the cotton to look pretty from the road. Didn't do it. But at the end of the day, the cotton didn't need it. So if it don't need it, don't spray it. I mean, you know, you you want it growing like it's supposed to grow, and if it's got a lot of growth potential, hey, put a little PGR out there. But if it if it's growing real slow like a lot of the cotton is right now, then then I'd wait, you know, and and and somebody, I did get a call this past week about, hey, you know, should we hit this cotton with picks and boron? I can get the pilot to do it this week, or I can hit it with my sprayer next week. And I was like, well, I didn't quite understand the situation. Uh grower was leaving town or something, wanted to know if it needed to be done now or later. And I said, I'm not gonna hesitate to do it later because I don't want to, number one, I don't want to pay somebody else to do it. But number two, I mean, that cotton was second week of squaring, maybe, you know. So I, you know, I'm just not a real aggressive PIX user myself. Um, I like to be on the lenient side and then maybe catch up on the back end, but you know, if it needs it, put some out there. And if it doesn't, don't. So keep in mind some of the some of the rain-free work we did a couple years ago. You really need to get about four hours with a PIX application. I think that's fairly safe for just about anything. So whether it's herbicides or insecticides or PGR or boron or whatever, if you can get about four hours uh out of that product before it starts raining, then I think you've done a good day's work. So hey, sounds good. Hey, sounds

Questions, Next Steps, And Wrap Up

SPEAKER_02 45:32

like a plan. Hey, if y'all uh if y'all listen to this and got any questions, feel free to call your county agent and we'll see you back in a couple of weeks. 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.