Dr. Keith Edmiston, NCSU Cotton Extension Specialist, had a few comments at the 22nd Annual Joint Commodities Conference for those that might be growing cotton for the first time this year or possibly getting back into the crop after an absence. First, unlike most row crops, cotton is, by nature, a perennial:
“I assume that there’s some people that are going to grow cotton this year that either haven’t grown it for a few years, or maybe have never grown it. Just, want to go back over just some basic things about cotton that makes it different than the other crops we grow, or most of the crops we grow. Cotton is a perennial plant, it thinks like a perennial. It thinks it’s going to be here next year, it doesn’t really care if it makes its yield this year, or next year, or when it makes it, whereas a corn plant pretty much has to make its yield this year.”
And being a perennial, Edmiston notes that the plants need some particular TLC in their young life:
“So there’re some aspects to being a perennial that’re good, and there’re some aspects that are bad. The first one that comes to mind as being bad, is early in the season, it’s a perennial, tropical type plant, it needs heat. It’s not a particularly a very good, vigorous plant coming out of the ground, the epicotyl is not very well formed, it sits there for a while, thrips can beat on it, sand can beat on it, seedling diseases can beat on it. Cotton is pretty weak to start off with.”
But, once you have a vigorous plant to work with, because of the perennial nature, there’s lots of time to make a crop:
“Positive is, you know if you miss. There’s a week there in corn, if its too hot and too dry and you miss it, it's over, you’ve missed it… The good thing about cotton if we do everything right... we take care of thrips... we don’t plant too late... we have a long bloom period, effective bloom period. And I’ve got down here the last effective bloom date is August 15, that’s pretty conservative, for most of you it’s probably passed that in most years. Certainly in this area, I’d have no problem with someone using August 20th or 25th, and we’ve tagged blooms in Clayton on September 6th that have made harvestable bolls, but I wouldn’t count on that every year.”
And, all in all there are many advantages to dealing with a crop that’s perennial in nature and there’s plenty of time for “do-overs”:
“One of the things that cotton has going for it, is, if it’s dry here, conditions aren’t good here, you’ve got some time to compensate on out here. Cotton has several chances to make a crop. It only takes about two weeks to make a two-bale crop in terms of bloom. So, if we plant late we can make a crop in most years but, everything has to be right here, we’ve got to have moisture. Cotton has ‘do-overs built in in here. And that’s one of the advantages of being a perennial.”
NCSU Extension cotton specialist, Dr. Keith Edmiston, at the research presentation portion of the Joint Commodities Conference held in New Bern, NC Jan 13 -14, 2011.
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