Cotton Specialists Corner

Cotton doesn’t fail the same way everywhere at once, and this year proves it. We’re coming to you from across the Southeast with a boots-on-the-ground cotton crop update that swings from dryland fields that never caught a rain to places that took one timely shower and turned into a three-bale story. Along the way, we talk acreage shifts, harvest starting points, and what we’re hearing from gins and growers as cotton moves from “hanging on” to “ready from a mile away.” Then we get practical a...

Harvest season doesn’t wait for perfect cotton, and a hot, dry finish can turn “normal” defoliation into a real test. We sit down with Mid-South cotton specialists Dr. Shelly Kerns (LSU), Dr. Brian Pieralisi (Mississippi State), and Dr. Tyson Raper (University of Tennessee) to compare what they’re seeing across Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee as pickers crank up and defoliation calls flood in. Acreage is nudging upward in several areas, early-planted cotton is showing strong potential, ...

The cotton crop across the Southwest is not just “variable” this year, it’s split-screen. We talk with a panel of Extension cotton specialists from Arizona, Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas to compare what’s holding on, what’s falling apart, and why water capacity is still the number one story even when the heat is doing the loudest damage. From Arizona’s mostly irrigated acres and surprising insect pressure to West Texas estimates of massive dryland abandonment, the regional update is blunt, spec...

If you’ve ever looked at a cotton field and thought, “Do I really need to spray again,” this conversation is for you. We sit down with Dr. Jeremy Green (Clemson) and Whitney Crow (Mississippi State) to get real about cotton insect management when the crop is all over the board and the weather is either too wet or too dry. We start with what cotton looks like right now across their regions, then zoom in on the decision that drives everything else: scouting. We talk about why a consultant’s “s...

Deer don’t have to destroy every acre to break a farm’s budget. When a herd gets concentrated along a field edge, a few nights of feeding can wipe out cotton terminals, strip leaves during bloom, and turn a “normal” stand into a financial loss you can’t spray your way out of. We sit down with Clemson Extension wildlife specialist Cory Heaton to talk plainly about what white-tailed deer are doing to agricultural commodities across the Southeast and why the problem has escalated over the last 3...