While we have having great weather for corn and soybean, the cool and cloudy conditions have not helped push our cotton crop to maturity. It’s not too early to think about defoliation, or more specifically, how to help our crop get mature enough to defoliate. Hopefully, many people were aggressive with earlier applications of plant growth regulator. However, from the look of some fields, late maturity and too much vegetative growth is common. So what can you do to speed things along?

Unfortunately, most of the things that have the biggest impact are old business (avoiding excessive nitrogen, managing early season insects, etc.). With good soil moisture in most areas already, consider shutting down pivots early on anything running late. You don’t want to be sitting at NAWF 7, 8 or 9 now, let alone 2-3 weeks from now. There is always an argument about the value of late “Pix” applications. Applications of growth regulator made now are often too little and too late to have substantial benefits. They don’t speed up boll maturation. It takes a given amount of heat units to mature a boll. However, they can discourage vegetative growth which can help retain the bottom crop which should encourage earlier maturity. Don’t expect miracles and do expect to use maximum labeled rates to achieve any benefits.

Of course, what we really need is a warm August and September!