To kick off the 2021 Cotton Focus Video Series, we are extremely grateful to have two videos from Dr. Scott Stewart- one discussing updates on thrips and one discussing updates bollworms.  As many of you know, Dr. Scott Stewart has recently accepted a new role as the Director of the West Tennessee Research and Education Center.   While we all hate to see him leave his current position, we are definitely excited to have him remaining on the team and I am very thankful he was willing to take time out of his busy schedule to still develop and deliver this content!  Dr. Stewart has also recorded a presentation on plant bugs; we will be posting that a little later in this series.

You can find links to Dr. Stewart’s updates on thrips and bollworms below.

There are two VIRTUAL county meetings coming up next week that many of you may be interested in attending.

January 12, 2021: The Fayette and Hardeman County Extension Offices will be hosting a Winter Production meeting. This meeting will be held on Zoom live, and recorded starting at 9:00 a.m. The following specialists will be speaking at this meeting:  Dr. Larry Steckel, UT Weed Specialist, Dr. Tyson Raper, UT Cotton and Small Grains Specialist, and Ryan Blair, Extension Area Specialist with Grain & Cotton Variety Testing. Dicamba and Paraquat training meetings via Zoom will be scheduled later. For more information including the ZOOM meeting link, contact Jeff Via at (901) 465-5233 jvia@utk.edu.

January 14, 2021: The Tipton County Extension Office will be hosting a Winter Production meeting. This meeting will be held on Zoom live, and recorded starting at 9:00 a.m. The following specialists will be speaking at this meeting: Dr. Larry Steckel, UT Weed Specialist, Dr. Tyson Raper, UT Cotton and Small Grains Specialist, and Ryan Blair, Extension Area Specialist with Grain & Cotton Variety Testing. Dicamba and Paraquat training meetings via Zoom will be scheduled later. For more information including the ZOOM meeting link, contact Becky Muller at (901) 619-3186 or rcherry1@utk.edu.

The 2020 Tennessee Cotton Variety Trial Results publication (PB 1742) is now available online.  Included within these results are nine large strip trials (CSTs) testing 15 XtendFlex commercial varieties, five large strip trials (CSTs) testing 5 Enlist commercial varieties, and six small plot trials (OVTs) testing 44 experimental and commercial varieties.  Continue reading →

As most know the EPA approved a new five-year registration for Engenia, Tavium and XtendiMax to be used in Xtend cotton and soybean. The new registration has some new labeled directions on application of these herbicides. In a series of articles this winter, we will try to highlight the major label changes.

One of the new labeled requirements for these three herbicides is the addition of a volatility reducing agent (VRA). Continue reading →

Preliminary data from the 2020 TN Cotton CST Data is now available.  We are releasing an average table for the XtendFlex trials and the Enlist trials today.  We only tested the XtendFlex and Enlist varieties together in a handful of locations.  I will release the average tables from those locations later, along with results from each individual location.  Also, stay tuned for the OVT small plot trial data average table which includes 44 commercial and pre-commercial varieties.  The last of the OVT samples should gin during the first of next week. Continue reading →