AgFax Cotton - Louisiana

By AgFax.com, AgFax Media LLC

OVERVIEW 

Chewing up acres. Cotton planting is mostly going at full throttle this week. Exceptions are areas that caught more rain since the start of the month and/or in bottoms. Otherwise, planters are running. Our contacts tell us that more of their farmers have finished planting or could hit that point before next week.

Speedy germination. A hot-weather trend has set in, so soils aren't lacking for warmth and cotton is quickly germinating and emerging.

Too dry to plant? Soils are getting dry in places. But we haven't heard of any cases in the Midsouth where growers completely stopped planting cotton due to lack of soil moisture. In the Southeast, several of our contacts reported this week that dryland cotton planting was on hold until it rained again or farmers were planting shallow and hoping for a rain.

LOUISIANA CROP REPORTS

Sebe Brown, Northeast Louisiana Region Extension Entomologist:

"A lot of guys are rolling hard with cotton planting. We've had really good drying weather and it's been unseasonably hot, too. We at least broke 90 today (5/8), which seems to be on the early side for hitting 90 here. The highest temperature I saw was 93 where the thermometer was in the sun. I don't know how accurate it was, but we are into the first taste of summer.

"The bulk of our soybeans have been planted. In certain areas, guys are watering corn for the first or even second time. It did rain in places over the weekend, from 0.3 to 1.5 inches. With this heat, soil temperatures are into the mid 70s and it's taking cotton as little as 4 days to emerge. 

"With this hotter weather, plants should be actively growing and escape thrips injury if the seed treatments are adequate. I'm getting calls about slugs in cover crops, more so in soybeans. The injury looks bad at first glance but it appears to be mostly superficial and I don't see where it would lead to stand loss."