Rumors of a few hundred planted cotton acres within the state have spread over the past three weeks. Assuming the rumors are true, the state is still less than .5% planted.

As I write this, I’m waiting for the third (and hopefully last) band of rain to sweep through the area to wrap up a very wet and destructive weekend storm system. Soils are again saturated through the heart of Tennessee’s cotton belt. Hopefully, clear skies and wind will prevail Monday and Tuesday, but even if fields dry enough to be trafficked by Tuesday afternoon, another rain-bearing system should arrive Wednesday or Thursday. Although I’m not terribly excited about more rain, I’m more concerned about temperatures in the forecast for Thursday and Friday; nighttime temperatures for Jackson are close to 47-48 deg and daytime temperatures are not expected to break 65 deg. For those of you watching DD60s, those two days give us nothing. Coupled with rain, I might subtract a few DD60s from the 5 day sum based on those few days. Keep in mind we need 26-50 DD60s accumulated across the 5 days following planting in order to classify planting conditions within the ‘good’ category and 50+ DD60s to fall within the ‘excellent’ category. With the current forecast, we are only expected to accumulate 9 DD60s. This puts us within the ‘very poor’ category.

Take home:
I’ll be planting this week because I’ve got several trials which are examining seedling disease. For those not interested in evaluating seedling disease, you still have time.   Don’t forget that 1) we have more planting capacity today than ever before, 2) our ideal planting window is far from closed, and 3) cotton planted later, in ideal conditions, has a tendency to catch cotton planted earlier in less-than-ideal conditions.