It’s off to Nashville this week and the Beltwide Cotton Conferences. Home will be the Opryland Hotel where several thousand growers, consultants and assorted industry representatives will be getting together. It’s been a few years since I’ve been to Beltwide so I’m really looking forward to seeing some old friends. This year’s theme is “Orchestrate Your Opportunities.” That’s sort of …
Cotton Board Members Appointed
Acting Agriculture Secretary Chuck Conner announced the appointment of 17 members and 17 alternate members to the Cotton Board, as well as one vacant alternate member position in Mississippi created by a resignation. Beginning Jan. 1, the Cotton Board will consist of 37 representatives of cotton producers and importers, their alternates and one consumer advisor. The members and alternates named …
Chasing After Cottonseed Oil
Cottonseed Oil is greasing up the highways during its ‘Comeback Tour.’ New uses for cottonseed oil are popping up across the U.S. and the National Cottonseed Products Association is making sure consumers can track where and how the oil is being used, even if they can’t make a cross-country trek. Cottonseedoiltour.com takes visitors zigzagging across a web-browser sized U.S. to …
A Revolutionary Cotton Picker
John Deere says that their new 7760 Cotton Picker will revolutionize harvesting the crop. This machine was on display in action at last week’s Sunbelt Ag Expo. Southeast AgNet’s Randall Weiseman was on hand to obtain interviews for me. He spoke with Jamie Flood, Deere’s Cotton Marketing Manager, who worked with the 7760 development in Iowa. You can listen to …
Cotton Highlights It’s ‘Natural’ Quality
The “green” trend that’s picking up steam in the U.S. is giving the cotton industry an incentive to promote its “natural” quality. Cotton Incorporated is making some small, but significant changes to its add campaign in an effort to let consumers know that cotton meets the criteria for being “green”. Cotton Incorporated announced the timely return of an American favorite: …
Putting the Heat on Cotton
Paul Funk is one of the experts at the 2007 Propane Technology Forum who has taken all the talk about innovative propane research a step further. Paul is a scientist with the USDA-Southwestern Cotton Ginning Research Laboratory. He is among the first to put heat defoliation of cotton with propane into practice. Paul and I discussed what he’s encountered out …
Dow Agrosciences Says No More Limitations for 2,4-D
Dow AgroSciences hasn’t set up camp at the Farm Progress Show in ten years. But, this year, the company says it has some exciting new technology to present and couldn’t skip out on offering farmers in Progress City a first-hand look. Dow AgroSciences Global Corn Business Leader Tom Wiltrout kicked off a press conference introducing the company’s Herbicide Tolerant Traits …
Dow, Hexima Team Up To Improve Cotton
Dow AgrogSciences and the Australian company Hexima Limited are teaming up to research ways to offer cotton growers a greater command over their crop. The joint effort wants to improve technology in the cotton industry in as little as two years. Dow AgroSciences LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of The Dow Chemical Company, is collaborating with Hexima Limited to test …
On the Cutting Edge of Cotton
The latest innovation in the cotton industry merges two integral processes to offer growers a more efficient production of cotton. And more growers can get their hands on the technology too. Case IH manufacturing has gone commercial with cotton. The machine is the Case IH Module Express 625, which allows growers to save capital, fuel and labor by combining cotton …
Farm Journal Zeros In on New Crop Acres
New crops are, well, cropping up everywhere. In fact, Farm Journal Media reports that a significant amount of new corn acres are popping up well outside the corn belt. Farm Journal says its latest campaign to collect data on new crop acres is unprecedented. The agricultural media company says this data collection campaign will serve as a vital tool for …