As many of you know, Dr. Angela McClure, our Extension Corn and Soybean Specialist, retired at the end of June after 20 years of service. Dr. McClure will be greatly missed. We are actively searching for a replacement and hope to have the position filled quickly. In the meantime, my colleagues and I will do our best to cover these commodities until the position is filled.
Rainfall (or lack thereof) has been the main topic of conversation in double crop soybean, full season soybean and corn. Several specific questions have arisen lately on irrigation management and how to maximize returns during 2022. With help from several of my colleagues, I’ve worked to update a previous post of Dr. McClure’s with information from 2022. Continue reading
Everyone seems to have an opinion on watering cotton in humid regions- do this, don’t do that unless this happens, etc. Even when you do everything right in a normal year, dryland cotton in TN often comes out close (and occasionally ahead) of irrigated. In a normal year, cotton often finds its way into the more droughty areas of the farm and is often bumped out from under pivots to make way for corn or soybeans which typically respond better to irrigation. 
More times than not, when a cotton planter left a TN field in 2022, a thunderstorm bringing ~2″ of rain and cool weather would arrive 3 days later. I’ve walked more replants this year than ever before and unfortunately the old saying ‘if you are on the fence, keep it’ rarely applied; in many fields, we weren’t anywhere near the metaphorical fence. Still, Tennessee’s ragged cotton crop has generally turned the corner and mid and late June have been cotton weather; our earliest cotton reached early bloom well prior-to the 4th. In this blog, I cover a few things to keep in mind as we begin to apply PGRs to more acres and look to push a few slower farms into ‘taking off’.
Large rainfall events and cool weather in late May strained Tennessee’s cotton crop. In some areas, individuals are considering replanting cotton that failed to emerge or cotton that appears to be just sitting. In other areas, reports of damaged or desiccated cotyledons have been reported and healthy, large cotyledons are hard to find most anywhere. In this blog, I cover a few rules of thumb to consider when determining whether or not to keep the stand and give a few words of advice to those that are considering May 30-something cotton. 
Strong thunderstorms brought heavy rainfall and isolated hail to some areas of the MidSouth last weekend (5/13-5/15). Reports of hail damage have not been widespread and many welcomed a rather helpful rainfall event. Still, those who caught hail are assessing their damaged stand and those who caught the heaviest rainfalls are trying to determine if a replant is warranted. In this blog, I summarize some recent research conducted by the MidSouth Cotton Specialists’ Working Group on hail damage and planting date/populations and discuss the applicability of those findings to our current situation. 
The Extension Cotton Specialists’ Working Group, with funding from Cotton Inc and support from a number of seed companies, has been studying seed quality and the impacts marginal seed have on in-season performance since 2020. I planted the 2022 seed quality trial last Thursday (April 28th) with the expectation that even the best treatments would struggle, based on the forecast. To my surprise, each time I checked the forecast temperatures increased and rain chances shrunk. Some of those treatments emerged yesterday and they rowed this afternoon (pictured above). The planting window that I thought would help separate excellent seed from marginal seed just might make everything look great!