This has been a tough week, with many walking cotton planted in mid to late May to find stands thinner with more gaps than acres planted in April. The number of cotton acres within the state appears to be decreasing despite several growers still planting.  Subsequently, in the past few days, I’ve had calls complaining about seedling vigor of every commercial cultivar.  Unfortunately for us, seedling vigor and seed quality have almost nothing to do with the failed stands from our last planting window- even marble-sized seed of the highest quality will drown when forced to suffer through prolonged saturated conditions. That said, a few callers this week pointed to one cultural practice as the saving grace on their acres, with others mentioning their desire to incorporate the practice on some of their acres in the future. In this blog, I’ll describe the underlying reasons for why that practice may only fit a portion of our acres- but for the acres on which it fits, it rarely results in the need for a replant.  I’ll also talk briefly about the lessons those who cannot use the practice might apply to their acres.

The slider above includes two pictures of cotton planted by the same planter, on the same day (May 22, 2025), within the same field (Milan, TN)- the two areas are approximately 200 ft apart.  Click and hold your pointer over the dividing line and slide it back and forth to see the striking differences associated with bedded versus flat ground this year. Continue reading →

Most of the conversations I’ve had in the past few days have centered around what to do with thin stands, when to stop planting, and how to manage late planted cotton.  In this post, I’m going to try to briefly tackle these three topics.  Be prepared, my opinion on a few of these items may run counter to the opinions of others.  Spoilers- if in doubt, keep it; yield potentials begin to decline rapidly as we move into June; and June cotton should be planted thinner than April or May cotton. Continue reading →

Many in the area are just now in the thick of planting.  For those who have not yet put seed in the ground, please check my post from last week on seeding rate.  For those that were able to capitalize on our April window, you’ve already properly selected seeding rate and now you are looking at possibly a thrips spray or your first post application for weeds.  As normal, your crop looks ‘sickly’, having fought through a blackberry winter, cloudy conditions, and in some areas, additional rains that were not needed.  The second step of moving our cotton budget out of the red and into the black is recognizing inputs which provide a return on investment and those that do not.  Spoiler- most of the products that attempt to hitch a ride in the tank with your early season insect or weed control products often don’t pay for themselves.  In this post, I cover a few of the inputs we have evaluated to help you understand where not to invest.  Special thanks to Dr. Bradley Wilson and Dr. Brian Pieralisi for their contributions to this article.

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I started planting trials looking at seed treatments and seed quality April 16th.  While I don’t think that is necessarily a wise decision for those NOT trying to stress their cotton, I had plants emerged by the 23rd of April and most treatments are quite healthy.  Many in the area started last week.  While my team paused planting for a week after the 16th,  we began planting as much as we could last week and at the moment we have planted our early Official Variety Trial in Jackson (April 23rd), our Ridgely Official Variety Trial (April 28th), our Gift Official Variety Trial (April 29th), and our Grand Junction Official Variety Trial (May 6th).  As I write this, we are working on planting several other trials here in Jackson.  Still, Tennessee’s cotton acres are well-under halfway planted.  In this blog, I highlight a few last minute decisions that you can make to help make your crop more profitable in 2025.

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