I’ve spent the better part of the past three days walking cotton throughout West Tennessee, and while I’m pleasantly surprised by our earliest planted acres, I’m concerned the crop in many areas may fall well-short of what we might have expected at the end of July. In this blog, I briefly share my thoughts on how I would approach terminating irrigation in 2024 and what I believe may be our best first-shot blend for defoliating our earliest acres. Continue reading
The 2024 MidSouth Cotton Defoliation Guide is now available online. You can access the guide by clicking the above image or any of the embedded links within this post. This guide was compiled and is updated yearly by Extension Cotton Specialists from throughout the Mid-South.
The extended planting season this year has resulted in an extended weed management season. Even with this in mind it has been surprising about questions this late in August on what can be sprayed on soybean to control pigweed, morninglories and grass. Continue reading
It’s extremely important to know when to stop irrigating corn crop while considering the best kernel development, quality, and yield. Continue reading
| Location | CEW | TBW |
| Hardeman (Bolivar) | 4 | 0 |
| Fayette (Whiteville) | 1 | 0 |
| Fayette (Somerville) | 0 | 0 |
| Shelby (Millington) | 5 | 0 |
| Tipton (Covington) | 2 | 0 |
| Tipton (North) | 1 | 0 |
| Lauderdale (Golddust) | 2 | 0 |
| Haywood(West) | 0 | 0 |
| Haywood (Brownsville) | 0 | 0 |
| Madison (WTREC) | 125 | 5 |
| Madison (North) | 1 | 0 |
| Crockett (Alamo) | 0 | 0 |
| Crockett (Friendship) | 0 | 0 |
| Dyer (King Rd) | 7 | 0 |
| Dyer (Dyersburg) | 8 | 2 |
| Lake (Ridgely) | 7 | 0 |
| Gibson (Trenton) | 0 | 0 |
| Gibson (Milan Rec) | 0 | 0 |
| Carroll (Coleman Farm) | 7 | 0 |
As we move into the 3rd week of August, it’s time to consider your desiccation options for soybean. Application timing is the most important. Too early and we will lose yield. Too late, and we’ve missed the window.
Bollworm egg lay across West TN is rapidly increasing. Our trap catches across the survey area are steadily increasing and I’ve started receiving several calls about large numbers of eggs . Fortunately, the vast majority of our cotton is Widestrike 3 (WS3) or Bollgard 3 (BG3). To date, I’ve had no reports of slippage through any three gene cotton in Tennessee. Going forward, our threshold for foliar applications targeting bollworms occurs when a combination of square and boll sampling shows 6 percent or more injury (e.g., 3 percent square injury and 3 percent boll injury, 4 percent square injury and 2 percent boll injury, etc.) and/or 4 or more larvae are present per 100 plants. Treatments based on egg lay is not recommended in 3 gene cottons. My colleague at Mississippi State, Dr. Tyler Towles, summarized our regional data (Fig. 1) demonstrating no economic benefit to making a diamide application to 3 gene cottons. Unless you’re at threshold, save the money on the diamide spray in 3 gene cotton.
One final note, as we are nearing the end of the 2024 growing season below are insect termination timings based on DD60s.
| Location | CEW | TBW |
| Hardeman (Bolivar) | 4 | 0 |
| Fayette (Whiteville) | 0 | 0 |
| Fayette (Somerville) | 2 | 0 |
| Shelby (Millington) | 16 | 2 |
| Tipton (Covington) | 3 | 0 |
| Tipton (North) | 2 | 0 |
| Lauderdale (Golddust) | 6 | 0 |
| Haywood(West) | 0 | 0 |
| Haywood (Brownsville) | 0 | 0 |
| Madison (WTREC) | 126 | 1 |
| Madison (North) | 0 | 0 |
| Crockett (Alamo) | 0 | 0 |
| Crockett (Friendship) | 1 | 0 |
| Dyer (King Rd) | 13 | 1 |
| Dyer (Dyersburg) | 10 | 11 |
| Lake (Ridgely) | 20 | 1 |
| Gibson (Trenton) | 13 | 0 |
| Gibson (Milan Rec) | 0 | 0 |
| Carroll (Coleman Farm) | 3 | 0 |