SC Cotton Meeting this Week

South Carolina’s Annual Cotton Growers’ Meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, getting underway with registration at 8:15 am at the Clemson University Cooperative Extension Service in Orangeburg. Dr. Mike Jones, Clemson Cotton Specialist for South Carolina is scheduled to speak, and explains that he has a two-part program:

“I’ll be giving a year-end review looking at yields and some of the environmental problems that occurred. The other part will be on variety selection and how some of the newer varieties are performing.”
 

Jones says that the Palmetto state had a record cotton year in 2012:

“In SC we will have a record yield. We had some problems getting the crop out, in fact we still have cotton in the fields.”
 

Jones says that while the official numbers are still out, South Carolina’s 2012 cotton yield will be close to 2 bales an acre:
 

“I think our average yield will be around 930 pounds.”
 

When 2012 yields are compared to a year-over-year average, Jones says that’s a tough one:
 

“With SC we are all over the place. Most of our cotton is grown dry-land so when it rains, we can average a two bale crop and when it doesn’t we are about 1-1.5 bales. Last year we were around 750 pounds. That’s an average year.”
 

While weed pressure in cotton is a given these days, Jones says that insect pressure in 2012’s crop was reduced from previous years, except for nematodes:
 

“Insect pressure was down, it was an average year. The biggest issue we are starting to see now is nematodes where we have cotton behind cotton and cotton behind other crops.”
 

Jones explains that there’s some exciting news coming out of his variety trials that he’ll present at tomorrow’s meeting:
 

“I conducted small and large plot replicated trials. One thing to note is that many of the varieties did very well in our trials. We did learn a lot about some maturity differences between the varieties. With testing across the state we saw many different environmental conditions with the tested varieties. A lot were consistent over those different environments.”
 

Jones gives the details of Tuesday’s meeting:
 

“Its in Orangeburg, sponsored by Clemson and the SC Cotton Board. The crowd should be great this year again.”
 

To learn more about the Annual South Carolina Cotton Meeting visit our calendar. Dr. Mike Jones, South Carolina cotton specialist.