Our ZimmPoll question this week is about what you think will be planted this year (just for corn and soybeans, with our apologies to the wheat and cotton growers), and USDA’s Chief Economist gave his answer at the 2012 Agricultural Outlook Forum last week. “We’re estimating corn plantings at about 94 million acres, the largest plantings since 1944,” said Joe …
Preparing For 2012 Cotton Season With FMC
During the Beltwide Cotton Conferences I visited with Gerald Simmons, FMC Southern Business Manager, about some best management practices and things to consider when preparing for this year’s crop. He says the business has changed, especially technology, but that growers should also consider some of those “old” options they have. FMC has a broad portfolio now for cotton that growers …
John Deere Cotton Harvest Module Identification
John Deere talked up its latest application for cotton growers during this year’s Beltwide Cotton Conferences. Harvest Identification Cotton will continue to automate the production of a cotton module. This is tied into the 7760 cotton picker. The application will use the RFID tags that are embedded into the module wrap. These will be captured by an RFID reader on …
Athena For Cotton
During the Beltwide Cotton Conferences my sponsor, FMC, featured two products for cotton growers, Athena and Mustang Max. I visited with Rusty Mitchell, to learn more about Athena. Rusty says Athena was originally developed for tree fruits and vegetable crops but realized it would have a great fit in cotton. It’s a pre-mix insecticide which was initially targeting spider mite …
Cotton’s First Forty Days
One of the resources available to cotton growers from the National Cotton Council is a pair of booklets on best management practices. They’re titled “The First 40 Days” and “Fruiting to Finish,” (pdf) To learn more about this project I spoke with Bill Robertson, Manager, Cotton Agronomy, Soils and Physiology, pictured toward the right in this photo. Bill says these …
eCotton Launches MyModules App
At the Beltwide Cotton Conferences I met Joe Wyrick, President, EWR, Inc. His company has a division called eCotton which “is dedicated to supplying the information processing needs of the cotton industry.” One of the new ways they’re doing that is with a brand new smartphone app called MyModules. Cotton producers can register new cotton modules and have them transmitted …
FMC On Display
During the Beltwide Cotton Conferences there’s a program track called “New Developments From Industry.” Our sponsor, FMC, conducted two of those sessions, including one by Craig Heim on a product they expect registration on later this year. Now that’s new! Craig says they anticipate the new product will have the trade name Display which is a combination of two PPO …
A Look At This Year’s Beltwide Cotton Conferences
This year’s Beltwide Cotton Conferences attracted about the same size crowd as last year according to National Cotton Council Vice President of Producer Affairs, Craig Brown. I sat down with Craig to find out how he thought things were going and to talk about upcoming format changes for the annual event. Craig says this is the second year they have …
2012 Cotton Market Outlook
We’ve had a look back at the cotton industry in 2011 but how about 2012? At the Beltwide Cotton Conferences we got that outlook from J. Michael Quinn, Carolinas Cotton Growers Cooperative. He started with a look at supply and demand. The December acreage projection was down from the November report. December had a significant slow down in mill use …
2011 Cotton Year In Review
How did things go in the cotton industry in 2011? The answers were included in a Beltwide Cotton Conferences general session presentation by Dr. David Wright, University of Florida. Florida wound up the 13th largest cotton growing state last year as an fyi. David says there was just too much that happened in 2011 to cover it all but he …