The 2022 University of Tennessee Cotton Focus is coming up on February 10th from 8AM to 1PM in Jackson, TN at the West Tennessee Research and Education Center (605 Airways Blvd Jackson, TN 38301).  Lunch will be provided and CCA, Commercial Applicator and Master Row Crop Points will be available. 

I will be posting the final agenda next week, but I can promise you will not want to miss this year’s content!  We have several speakers that will be addressing extremely impactful information that will help tackling the challenges of 2022.  Hope to see you there!

The 2021 Tennessee Cotton Variety Trial Results Publication (PB 1742) is now available online.  Included within these results are ten large strip trials (CSTs) testing 15 XtendFlex commercial varieties, three large strip trials (CSTs) testing 5 Enlist commercial varieties, and six small plot trials (OVTs) testing 41 experimental and commercial varieties. Special thanks to all of the agents and producers who helped generate this data.  Additionally, thanks to the USDA Classing Office in Memphis for assisting with this effort.  If you have any questions on location response or variety placement, please do not hesitate to reach out directly to your county agent.

The 2021 Tennessee Official Variety Trial (OVT) Results are now available online.  By clicking the image above or the pdf below, you will be directed to trial information, an overall OVT average table, and individual average tables for five of the 2021 OVTs.  Continue reading →

Preliminary data from the 2021 TN Cotton CSTs is now available.  We are releasing an average table for the XtendFlex trials and the Enlist trials today and hope to release the quality and individual location results in the near future.  Keep in mind the XtendFlex and Enlist trials are conducted separately, so direct comparisons between tables cannot be made from this dataset.  Also, stay tuned for the OVT small plot trial data average table which includes 41 commercial and pre-commercial varieties.  Continue reading →

Posted by Tyson Raper on behalf of the author, Dr. Aaron Smith

It’s a challenging time for crop producers to manage input price risk. Input prices for fertilizer, crop protection (chemicals), machinery, fuel, labor, rent, and insurance are up substantially compared to last year at this time. Additionally, availability and timeliness of delivery are a major concern. Fertilizer prices highlight this dramatic increase in the cost of production (graphs above). Most common fertilizers have more than doubled compared to last year. As such, producers are seeking strategies to reduce input costs. Two recommendations, as a starting point, are soil sampling (know what you’ve got) and crop selection (know current relative cost and revenue relationships for commodities produced on your farm). Unfortunately, there is no “silver bullet” to mitigate rising input costs and availability concerns. So, producers will need to be creative in their approach and consider numerous strategies. Continue reading →

Rainfall pushed us out of the field today and it looks like we may not get back to spraying until early next week; it is generally best to not apply harvest aids in front of a guaranteed rain.  In this blog, I cover defoliation concoctions as we move into cooler temperatures next week. Continue reading →