Here is this week’s issue of MiteFax: SJV Cotton, sponsored by the California Cotton Team of Syngenta Crop Protection.

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Owen Taylor, Editor

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The UC cotton planting forecast made a more positive move in the middle of the week, and planting activity picked up going into the weekend.

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Warm growing conditions should favor fast germination and emergence for any cotton already planted.

IRRIGATION SEMINAR, APRIL 24

UC Extension will hold a field and row-crop irrigation seminar on April 24 at the West Side REC, with registration starting at 8 a.m. A number of topics will be covered across cotton, alfalfa, corn and vegetable crops.

Lunch will follow the main meeting, and an afternoon session will offer pointers on improving agricultural pump efficiency.

For a copy of the agenda, click here.

CROP REPORTS:

Bob Hutmacher, Extension Cotton Specialist: "At the rate things are going, a lot of growers will probably be at least halfway through planting cotton by the end of the weekend. Less has been planted, I think, in the north end of the valley because the temperatures have been down so much. We planted a small Acala trial up there yesterday (Wednesday), and probably was the first field planted on that ranch this season. But conditions are warming up quite well, and I think everyone will jump on it now.

"I’m not seeing much cotton up yet. There’s some up in the Corcoran area, and some planted in the Lemoore area last Thursday is starting to pop up, too. It’s suppose to move into the mid 80s this weekend, and I think most cotton planted in the last week will blow out of the ground pretty quickly. Moisture looks decent, and a lot of this crop could be making a very good start.

"Some producers appear to have planted right through, regardless of the weather, while others planted up to a point and then parked the planters when the weather turned colder. It stayed cool enough long enough for soil temperatures to get real iffy. We’ve been planting our own plots, and most of our cooperators seem to be planting with Quadris and figure that, money-wise, the cost of seed and other inputs is too high to go without something in furrow. That kind of approach would have been the rare case a few years ago, but it’s getting more commonplace now.

Tony Touma, PCA, Bio Ag Consulting, Bakersfield: "My growers mostly started planting four to five days ago, and it won’t take much longer for them to finish. No cotton is up in Buttonwillow yet. One grower south of Buttonwillow had some up last week, but that’s it.

"We sprayed hay for weevils about six weeks ago and are now spraying some fields for aphids. They are mostly bad in the new hay that hasn’t been cut yet. In some cases where we sprayed earlier for weevils we had to come back two weeks after cutting and spray for black bean aphid.

"As of last week, we’ve been finding rust in the wheat, mostly a few plants in spots. On about 800 acres, we included a fungicide where we sprayed earlier for aphids. We’re doing the last irrigation on wheat now. A lot of people didn’t want to spray fungicides earlier at flag leaf or do a preventive because it was so dry. Then we got rain about 10 days ago, which maybe got rust started. We’ve also sprayed a lot of garlic for rust."

Sara Savary, PCA Crop Care Associates, Fresno: "One of my growers will finish planting cotton this weekend. Another one is finishing corn planting and will start on cotton next week. It’s nice and warm, and I think everything will be jumping out of the ground pretty fast. A lot of guys last week started planting when it was cold because they were worried about soil moisture."

CELL PHONE PLANTING FORECAST

Every weekday by 6:30 a.m. we send a short version of that morning’s updated cotton planting forecast to our text-message list, plus a followup message later in the day (and on Saturdays) if the forecast significantly changes. Sign up at: agfax.com/d/sub