"It's time to start planning for cotton harvest. Some harvest aids have been applied, and most of our cotton will be ready for application in the next two weeks.
"In most areas, we have potential for a good yield in both dryland and irrigated areas. A lot of the cotton has shown a reddish leaf color much earlier than normal and this is caused primarily by the large boll load on the plant. The plant has either developed a potassium deficiency due to developing boll demand or part of the plant has been stressed enough to allow late season verticillium wilt to affect the plant more than normal
"Verticilliium wilt can be identified by appearance of brown streaks in the lower part of the main stem of the plant. Both of these conditions look bad, and could possibly affect late season boll development. But the symptoms have developed due to a large boll load and are normally in cotton that will have high yields.
"Another problem that has shown up in the last week or so concerns plants in dryland areas that received rainfall and started to grown again now that the bolls are mature and are no longer pulling the plant down. All the above conditions can influence how thplant responds to harvest and application.
Oklahoma State University has conducted some harvest aid demonstrations in the area. Those applications, with a combination of boll opener plus defoliant have been performing the best, even when the bolls are already open.
"Finish, Prep or other ethephon-based boll openers seem to make the defoliant material work more effectively. Finish will work more quickly than other boll openers, but other openers applied at a higher rate will be almost as effective.
"The best treatments at this time are Finish at 1.5 to two pints per acre plus Def at one pint per acre. Other effective treatments include other ethephon-boll openers at two pints plus either Def at one pine per acre or Ginstar at six to eight ounces per acre. The Ginstar appication works more slowly, but is probably the best choice in the areas where plants have had a surge of late season growth. Some of the boll opener products have come down in price recently, and their use at a higher rate can be easily justified.
"With stripper harvesting, it is likely that a desiccant will need to be applied at about a week following the initial treatment to further condition the plant for harvest. If we receive a freeze, that should take care of the conditioning of the plant. Desiccants can be Gramoxone, Aim, ET or Blizzard if there is no danger of drift to areas planted to wheat, but if there is any danger of drift to small grains, Gramoxone should not be used."
"BOLL WEEVIL NEARLY ERADICATED' is the message recently delivered at the National Cotton Council's Boll Weevil Action Committee annual meeting in Dallas, Tx.
Bill Grefenstette, program coordinator of the USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service National Boll Weevil Eradication Program, reported the boll weevil has been eradicated from 97 percent of US cotton acreage and the only significant remaining populations of boll weevils are concentrated in southern Texas.
Based on a report from the Texas Boll Weevil Eradication Foundation, Texas has made tremendous progress in the eradication program, but challenges continue to arise.
The report states that producers have acknowledged how volunteer cotton plants contributed to boll weevil populations and have increaseD efforts to remove or treat volunteer cotton plants. Recent research has demonstrated cotton plants not intended for harvest, but voluntarily growing where seeds have fallen, provide a continued source of weevils.
COTTON GROWTH TABLE
State of growth GDD* Days
Emergence 50-60 3-4
Pinhead square 425-500 25-35
First bloom 725-825 41-61
Open bloom 1525-1925 102-127
Defoliation 2140-2300 120-130
*Growing degree day
TALKIN' COTTON is produced by NTOK Cotton, a cotton industry partnership which encourages and supports increased production in the Rolling Plains of North Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas. For more information on the cotton scene, see ntokcotton.org and okiecotton.org. For comments or questions about Talkin' Cotton, contact eventerprise1@hughes.net.
Post a Comment
