Virginia Cotton: Planting Window Lasts a Month
For the last two years, we have had extremely warm weather during the end of April that has facilitated a lot of favorable planting weather for cotton.
However, both of these years had record-breaking summer temperatures that favored later planting dates, so we did not get any advantage from planting early.
This year, we have had warm weather during the winter and early spring, but the last part of April will be chilly enough to stop us from planting any cotton. No big deal though.
Our early cotton planting dates are from April 25 to May 5,so we have all of next week to get in our early cotton. The middle of the cotton planting season for our area lasts from May 5 to May 15,which provides what you might call a typical crop for this region. The last part of the normal planting season is May 15 through May 25, which has resulted in favorable yields over the last 10 years.
Planting May 25 to June 5 is our late planting dates and requires warm temperatures in September and October for success.
Overall, we have a month of normal cotton planting days in front of us. The first objective is to plant up to about 25 percent by Saturday week. Target the early part of next week to begin.
