Owen Taylor, Editor, 888-327-6329

June 11, 2008 - Parts of the Midsouth have endured 7 or more days of stiff, nearly constant wind. It has beaten up cotton in places and, more significantly, delayed herbicide treatments and some insecticide applications. Rain fell over parts of the region Monday and Monday night. Where it fell, amounts varied from a trace to over 1.5 inches.

A few plant bug applications have been made on older, squaring cotton. Some aphid treatments also have gone out. Spider mites are not being mentioned much.

This week's report included a total of 10 reports from our contacts in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri and Tennessee. A quick sample from this week's report:

Reynold Minsky, Ind. Consultant, Lake Providence, La.

“Cotton has 8 to 9 nodes and is fruiting on nodes 7 to 8. That’s going to make it a little ‘limby’ in the bottom. I don’t think that will hurt yields, since maybe we’ll pick a little higher and pick better. This weather is just what cotton needs, although corn and soybeans could use a rain now. It’s been 2 to 3 weeks since we’ve gotten rain.

Victor Roth, Roth Farm Service, Malden, Mo.

“I’m looking right now (Monday afternoon) at some cotton with 8 leaves and squaring. It’s probably the most advanced I have. Most of the rest is at 5 to 6 leaves. I feel like we’re somewhat behind normal in terms of squaring. I would certainly have liked to seen it start a week earlier. Plant growth was slow getting started, mostly due to cool, wet conditions at planting. Insects aren’t an issue, so far. We put out some treatments for thrips, but nothing widespread.

Joe Townsend, Ind. Consultant, Coahoma, Miss.

“Our biggest cotton is at node 8 and just starting to square. We sprayed a good bit of our cotton twice for thrips but are just about through with that. Our moisture is deficient. We haven’t watered any cotton yet, but if it doesn’t rain within a week we will probably start. We’ve had a lot of delayed herbicide applications due to the wind, and results haven’t been good in some cases because weeds aren’t healthy. We’re also seeing some barnyardgrass making it through Roundup applications. We’ve got places where you can find 10 plants, with 5 of them quite dead and 5 of them alive and very green. We’ve already had what appear to resistance issues with ryegrass and giant ragweed, not to mention marestail.”

Tom Barber, Arkansas Extension Cotton Specialist

“The wind this last week tore things up pretty badly. We need some relief. Nothing could be done about weeds because it was too windy to spray. A lot of these fields aren’t Flex cotton, and they missed the 4-leaf-stage treatment, so we’re reverting to hoods on a lot of young cotton. It’s getting dry. Hopefully, we’ll get some rain, and that will help shift us out of this windy pattern and keep us from having to irrigate, too.”

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