Webcasts on Cotton Leaf Grade Values, Response to Stress Now Available through Cotton Incorporated, Plant Management Network

Over the past decade, quality has become an ever-more important factor in the U.S. cotton industry as more product from the U.S. is exported.

Cotton Incorporated and the Plant Management Network, a nonprofit publisher of crop science information, have launched two new webcasts to help consultants, growers, and other practitioners throughout the Cotton Belt maximize cotton quality from the early growth stages all the way through harvest.

In the webcast “Cotton Response to Stress,” Glen Ritchie, Assistant Professor at Texas Tech and Texas A&M Universities, helps practitioners throughout the U.S. Cotton Belt to understand more about the effects of stress on cotton growth and yield; how early season disease and insect pressure can decrease plant growth; the effects of stress on cotton vegetative and reproductive growth; the effects of stress on distribution of bolls on plants; and the effects of stress on cotton fiber quality.

By the end of this presentation, the practitioner should know more about general stress responses of cotton and which periods of growth are most susceptible to decreases on crop yield and quality.

In the second webcast, “Factors Contributing to Higher Cotton Leaf Grade Values” Gaylon Morgan, Professor and Cotton Extension Agronomist at Texas A&M University, helps practitioners all over the U.S. Cotton Belt identify factors contributing to higher cotton leaf grade values.

Contamination of the cotton lint by leaf and bract material, quantified as leaf grade value by the HVI analysis, is one fiber quality measurement wherecotton producers are receiving significant price discounts.

This presentation will discuss the factors contributing to higher leaf grade values in cotton and recommendations for minimizing cotton leaf grade values so that growers can receive higher returns in the market.

‘Focus on Cotton’ is a webcast resource whose mission is to enhance the health, management, and production of cotton crops through quality, science-based information for practitioners. The resource now contains more than 30 webcasts on various aspects of cotton crop management. These talks, freely accessible 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, cover agronomic practices, crop protection, and ag engineering.

‘Focus on Cotton’ also features a new and improved Cotton Extension Search tool, where users can conveniently search for extension resources across all universities serving cotton producers.

All of these resources are freely available courtesy of Cotton Incorporated at http://www.plantmanagementnetwork.org/foco.

Courtesy The Cotton Board