Cotton Specialists Corner
Extension Cotton Specialists and others from across the U.S. weigh in on a variety of topics that impact cotton producers, consultants, and the industry as a whole.
Cotton Specialists Corner
Preparing for Planting: Seeding Rates, Seed Quality, and Planter Prep
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Cotton seed is expensive, but the real question isn’t “How many seeds did you plant?” It’s “How many healthy, evenly spaced plants actually carry yield to the picker.” We sit down with cotton specialists from the University of Georgia, Texas A&M AgriLife, the University of Tennessee, Auburn University, and NC State to compare seeding rate recommendations across the Cotton Belt and explain why the right number changes with moisture, irrigation capacity, and planting risk.
We talk straight about what growers are doing now, where populations tend to be too high, and how far you can realistically back down without paying for it later. You’ll hear the pros and cons of wide rows, skip-row patterns, and singulation, plus why the economics can look completely different in water-limited Texas compared with higher-yield environments farther east. We also dig into the management side of plant population: canopy light, fruit retention, maturity, plant-to-plant competition, and why uniform stands often matter more than raw seeding rate.
Seed quality and planter setup close the loop. We break down warm germination vs cool germination as a vigor signal, how emergence timing affects yield, and what stand counts can reveal that a cab monitor can’t. Then we lay out a practical planter checklist: meter condition, vacuum settings for seed size, row-unit depth consistency, downforce, row cleaners in heavy residue, and closing the furrow for strong seed-to-soil contact in no-till and strip-till systems.
Subscribe, share this with a cotton grower or consultant, and leave a review so more people can find these cotton planting and seeding rate insights. What seeding rate are you targeting this year, and what’s your biggest planting risk?
Cold Open And Welcome
SPEAKER_04But it's still the only life that is a choose. Well I finally made some money. It's the cotton picking cotton grooving blue.
Goals For Input Optimization
Regional Seeding Rate Benchmarks
SPEAKER_07Welcome to this episode of the Cotton Specialist Corner Podcast. My name is Camp Hand, uh, cotton specialist at the University of Georgia based out of Tifton. And uh today we're kind of doing an episode uh and we schedule these things a couple of weeks out, and and really the goal of this one was uh to talk about optimizing inputs going into planting and and speaking about seeding rates. That's something we got some requests on some stuff to do, but wanted to talk about it from a more uh holistic type approach. And even though uh we did schedule it a couple of weeks ago, and at the time the price was not what it is now, people still want to reduce inputs, people still want to maximize net returns. And so uh certainly a discussion that needs to be had uh in terms of seeding rates and planner setup and seed quality and some different things like that. So we got a good group of folks across the cotton belt. We got Dr. Ken Leger with Texas AM AgriLife, we got Dr. Tyson Rafer at the University of Tennessee, Dr. Simmer Virk is a precision ag faculty at Auburn University, and then Dr. Guy Collins at NC State. So certainly want to thank you guys for joining us today. But the first thing that I just wanted to get into, real quick, wanted to talk about what standard uh recommendations there are uh that you guys are are presenting to growers uh as we get into planting across the cotton belt. What is a standard seeding rate for y'all and what are y'all generally uh recommending in your geography? And we'll start with Ken and kind of move our way back east.
SPEAKER_03Sure. And just like everything in the Texas High Plains, Rolling Plains area, everything depends on moisture and available irrigation. So, you know, 70% of our acres here are dry land, and uh uh being in a semi-arid climate, that that is tricky on trying to uh get a stand with good planting moisture. But you know, thinking about uh the typical seeding rates that we see on dryland acres here uh typically is between 25 and 30,000 uh in hopes of getting at least 17,000, 18,000 plants up, hopefully. Uh on irrigated, it's trickier because not all irrigation is created equally here. Uh on things that are limited irrigation from a gallon and a half or two gallons per minute per acre, uh, you know, it's almost more like dry land seeding rates. Uh, but on some better, higher irrigation capacity fuels of you know, three, four, or five gallons per minute per acre, which are getting fewer and fewer. Uh, we're we're up 35 to 45,000 seeding rate in hopes of getting uh around that 30,000, 35,000 plants per acre. So that's that's kind of what we shoot for. But getting there, it's like here. That's right.
SPEAKER_02Tyson. So it's it's pretty simple for us. Uh, you know, we're really trying to get to that two plants per row foot mark, and on a wide row, you know, that that puts us around that 28,000 mark uh on a plant population. So seeding rate recommendation usually around 35, 38. And that represents a low mark. Most of our guys are running 42, 45, 47, even into the 50s. So that's really kind of the reason, Camp, we've made a big effort here lately on trying to reduce seeding rates. Yeah. Dr. Burke.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so in Alabama, I guess it's all over the board, but if I had to say uh let me put it this way, what the growers are planting is North Alabama, they're typically the seeding rates are pretty higher. We're close to anywhere from 35, 36 all the way up to 42, 43. And this is on uh some solid 30-inch rows, even some skip row, 30-inch cotton, and then even 36. Uh, actually, we even have a couple growers planting 40-inch solid there. So this is kind of their populations there. Now, as we come closer or down, central Alabama, South Alabama, uh, we are actually on a little bit lower. 36-inch spacing is very common with some 38 solids. And our nominal population is about 27 to about 32, 33 in central Alabama. Now, last year I learned as you go more down south Alabama, there are guys planting close to 18 tops and like they're pretty low, which I would say 18 to 20, 21, 22. Now, there are some rates higher than that, but I've said it's like as you go more down south in Alabama, the seeding rates are probably lower. Um, what we recommend based on our kind of stuff over the last, I don't know, I've been doing this for five, six years now. A lot of Georgia data, even some Alabama data now. We have seen that I I my kind of recommendation then was two seeds to a foot, you know, to get give it enough chance to have that even if you one didn't come up, you have a plant every foot or so. Yeah, for sure. And then Guy.
SPEAKER_01Well, in North Carolina, we're kind of at the northern tip of the cotton belt. So that's important to note. Uh, but I would say we're probably higher than most folks. Uh, our target in general would be 43,560, and most of our rows are 36-inch rows, so that'd be three seed per foot in hopes of you know establishing two to two and a half plants per foot. So we want an ultimate plant population of 35,000, 36,000. Um, but a lot of our growers, I'd say 90% of them are going to be with between 40,000 and 44, maybe. Um, now if we run into really bad cold weather conditions during planting, we may bump that up to 46 to 48,000, just depending on the the situation. Obviously, we don't want to do that due to the expense of it, um, but sometimes it's it's necessary.
Why Growers Want To Cut Seed
SPEAKER_07Yeah, for sure. And I mean, the the reason that people want to even have a discussion about reducing seeding rates is because it's one of the most expensive inputs that there is, right? And it doesn't matter if you're in Texas or Arizona, all the way over here on the east side of the belt, um, where we pay a lot for cotton seed in Georgia, right? I mean, it's it's just expensive, and people don't want to spend too much money. And you know, even a conversation that I had with a county agent yesterday or two days ago, where where a guy in Georgia was planting on hill drop two on 10, and so he's right in that 35,000 seed per acre range where where we can probably in an irrigated situation bring that down some. And once you start putting numbers to it and say, hey, you can save$15 an acre, right, and and still yield the same nine times out of 10, right? Then then, hey, why wouldn't you do it? Why wouldn't you try some? And so a lot of people are are certainly interested in reducing seeding rates, and and there's a lot of different ways to do that, whether it is just um stretching out your seed spacing, right, in the same in the same row spacing. If you're on a 30 or a 36-inch row and you just uh put more space in between those seeds, you're you're stretching that bag of seed to cover more acres. But then, two, there's been a lot of work uh over the last five years or so on some of these wide row spacings or skip row, uh, like Dr. Burke mentioned in the state of Alabama. So what are some of the things that people in your states are looking at doing, or you guys are looking at doing in particular with respect to reducing that kind of input cost for growers in your state? And we'll kind of start with Guy and go back the other direction, wind up with Ken.
SPEAKER_01Well, I mean, the the big incentive is to see how low we can go uh to save money. So, my first question when I when I get these types of questions, I I respond with a question do you want to chase optimal yields or do you want to conserve costs? Because a lot of times what we have found is it's not the same population will achieve both. Uh, when doing population work, which has been a while since I've done it, uh a lot of times it shows we need to be planting more, which is not what we want to hear due to the expense. So we're actually revisiting a lot of that right now with modern-day seed cost and things of that nature. So, you know, like last year especially, when prices were very suppressed, that was one very common question, and rightfully so. So it I'd answer that with potential caveats to doing so. So, or the risk, I should say, of doing so. So, you know, we can probably under really good planting conditions go down to planting a popular or seeding rate of 37, maybe 36,000, but it's very, very critical that we get a good stand with that. So then I encourage them to really pay attention to not only planting conditions. Obviously, we want it very warm when we're doing that. We don't want any kind of packing rain coming within the that first week. Uh so we do want the planting in you know, good soil moisture. Um, but we have to ensure a very good stand. So we we that's when we really look at warm germ, cool germ, things of that nature, seed size, even planting shallow uh was very important to us uh in that regard. Um, so anyway, that's that's about as low as we that I'm willing to recommend, but only under very special circumstances.
Wide Row/Skip Row Economics
SPEAKER_07Yeah, and and guy, real quick, kind of while we're on this in terms of reducing inputs and and things like that, uh, one of y'all's graduate students, Mike, he he did some work on some two-in-one and four-in-one and and wide row stuff, and and what'd y'all kind of see in the in the state of North Carolina with some of that?
SPEAKER_01Well, the the two-in-one and four-in-one, we've done that before. That used to be, I'm not gonna say common, but it wasn't uncommon several years ago. So we wanted to reinvestigate that while we were looking at this every other row, ultra-wide row uh type system. And occasionally we can get it to pencil out to be equal to what we're currently are doing, uh, especially the four and one. Um, so that was a good trade-off between capturing yield potential and and savings a little bit, but rarely, very rarely, did it exceed economically wise, it did it exceed what we're currently doing. Yeah. Uh, and the same thing happened with the ultra-wide road. Most of the time, um, despite the savings, it was it was a net loss. Um, and occasionally we could get it to be equal to what we're currently doing, but not better. Yeah. So anyway, it's a it's a strategy, but I don't know that it's gonna pay off as much as people think it will.
SPEAKER_07Right, right. Dr. Burke.
SPEAKER_00My I guess my biggest recommendation right now, and we are starting to see a lot of that, especially this year, is uh we still got a lot of guys hill dropping, and I think as we start talking about reducing seeding rates, I think we want to make sure we get them to single it in. You know, uh, I don't think it may hill drop make sense on every farm or every field on your farm. There may be some cases where, yeah, it would still be beneficial, but uh, we start doing a lot of these trials with these growers over the last year and this year, and uh kind of I'm already heard from eight or ten growers who kind of went and bought singulated plates and stuff, and now they feel more comfortable on what their populations are. So that's kind of one strategy. I usually kind of tell them if they're already not single-ating he'll drop. We are working with some growers. Uh, that's where Josh and I were kind of riding last week together, North Alabama. These three guys, they're probably the biggest producers in Cherokee County over there, and they're all on different road spacings. One is 30-inch two by one skip, one is 36-inch solid, and another is a 40. And just amongst those three, the populations are anywhere from 29,000 to 43,000. And they're making, you know, they're like, okay, what is the other guy doing? Why I'm on this? So they're all bringing their planters onto the war one field. So we're gonna do some trials. But the most interesting thing was I know we talked about this in road spacing stuff in the past. Um, while we were talking, I told them, I'm like, hey, why don't we just do a seating grade trial on each of y'all's farm beside this, you know, besides just comparing the spacing. And they're actually more entrusted on that because they kind of shared the same messages I think we've been hearing. It's not easy to change your spacing, all your equipment and everything else, you know, don't even if you find out like this works, now you got to switch up everything, you know, to make the other things work. And so they were more entrusted in, well, I want to do a seeding rate trial and see how low can we kind of go and still make good yields. So I think that's what we end up doing. But my biggest, like I said, biggest thing we're kind of recommending here if people wanting to go low is be cautious about it. You know, uh, if you're held, do single-aided. And then I've kind of especially on the precision ag side, I've been preaching that as we start to look at these lower seeding rates or plant lower seeding rates, planter technology becomes more critical, especially like precision seed meters that can eliminate skips and doubles and all that. We want to make a really good job of putting that seed evenly spaced in the row. Right.
SPEAKER_07Right.
SPEAKER_02Tyson? Yeah, I want to, I want to, you know, he talks about even spacing, Samuel did just there at the end. And I I think a lot of the conversations I've had about row spacing, skip pattern, um, I mean, most of the data that we've generated would say we see very similar levels of yield across solid 30s, solid 38s, solid 40s, two skip one until you get really, really wide. But like what really breaks the system is when we go solid 30s. It's it's picker efficiency. Right. Um, and if we're able to give every plant out there in the field the same amount of space, really road spacing doesn't matter. Um, it's the the issue is picker efficiency is where we typically see the system break, right? Usually we can get it planted fast. It's the picker that really, really slows us down. So and and and then there's a couple of things that we've talked about. And so I'm gonna I'm gonna go back. You mentioned seed savings.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um that's significant, but uh my argument to the growers here is the seed savings is uh relatively small compared to the benefit from a management standpoint as you get in season. So if we can spread those plants out, uh, you know, Samir mentioned we've got the, you know, some hill dropping. I don't have a lot of guys hill dropping here in Tennessee anymore, but still I will have a weed cotton plant out there in the road, right? That little plant, I mean you can see it even after the stalks remote, that little plant that really never made much of anything of itself, and it just sucks nutrients and resources away from those other plants that were really trying to be more profitable, right? And and when I'm trying to talk through this reduced seeding rate, like we need to we need to start giving every plant more uh room, allow that light to penetrate the canopy, to ease fruit retention and and increase overall fruiting position per plant. I I try to find some one of the older individuals in the room and be like, hey, you remember chopping cotton? Because historically, you know, chopping cotton, yeah, we were chopping weeds, but we were also thinning out the stand and and trying to give every one of those plants more room. So the saving side of things. So yeah, and we're sit we're saving seed, but we're also making it a whole lot easier for that plant to retain first position fruit deeper in the canopy. We're typically increasing the fruiting body size down deeper in the canopy. Um the arguments against that reduced seeding rate or are it's what's it's delaying maturity. And we're not really seeing that. But I mean, every fair plant ends up being one from that, you know, skipped area where there's just one plant up and he's got no neighbors, right? And he's just loaded up, and you'd think the plant bugs would just annihilate that one plant, but but that they don't. It's there's a lot of potential savings other than just the the seed savings. I've been trying to push towards that 88,000 uh the 38,000 mark, 38,000 mark, and I get a lot of pushback. A lot of guys are like, well, you know, I feel like if I plant 45, the chances of me having to replant are lower. And I've been arguing steadily against that because the fact is, if we get that two-inch rainfall that you mentioned, it doesn't matter if you planted 70,000. You could have a hundred seed per row foot, and you're still gonna get the opportunity, you're you're still gonna have to go back and replant that that farm. So um, yeah, that's we've covered quite a bit here, but I I wanted to make sure that uh to to re-emphasize the point that we got we got to be able to give every plant equal amount of uh resources, regardless of the the row spacing. And if we can do that, um, it should be some of these other components of the production system where we're really able to separate returns.
SPEAKER_07Right. You know, it's funny you bring up these single plants that are out in the middle of a field and a plant bug wearing them out, but really, you know, what I I don't know much about plant bugs because we don't normally have them. But what I know about them is that normally they prefer those more vigorous areas of a field and where you've got more of that interplant competition, it's gonna be growing more aggressively, right? And so they would prefer that almost. So if you space it out, you might uh lessen the load a little bit, so to speak, right?
SPEAKER_02What I believe that you're shifting that flowering window earlier in the season too. When we start giving, when we start reducing the plant-to-plant and interplant competition, all of a sudden our fruiting window slides up earlier in the season, our effective flowering window is shorter typically. Uh and man, that there's just a tremendous number of benefits. And so so yeah, we're we're saving on insecticide, we're likely saving on PGR, especially if we've done nitrogen rate right. Um, we're saving on defoliation. I mean, it's again, you know, we can talk about the$15 to$20 savings. And when we're looking at the overall budget, right? It the seed isn't going to get us there, right? Even at 78, 79, 82 cents. We got to have other benefits. But when you start adding all these other things together, man, it's it's a change in management that can really provide a tremendous amount of value.
SPEAKER_07For sure. And then, Ken, you know, a lot of the stuff that we've talked about in terms of what y'all are working on, but I know that you've seen, I've seen some of the same stuff that guy saw with with my wide row stuff, and we've talked about that. But um, if you want to touch on some of the stuff y'all been doing the last couple years and and just kind of how uh growers are getting a little creative in terms of approaching this this particular issue.
Water Drives Texas Planting Systems
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and you know, again, I think everything, well, the underlying factor there is water. Uh in some cases, y'all are trying to aerate the canopy, and and perhaps you're not seeing the water use efficiency increase on those wider rows. We are. Uh, in our deficit situation, uh, that's been the overlying theme is as we widen those rows, and then of course we've had two-in-one skip, and and Lord, I've seen all kinds of patterns out on the rolling planes, they get really creative. Uh, but two-in-one skip's been been on dry land here for for ages, so that's nothing new. The newest thing is these 80 inch rows, so one in one skip 40s. Uh, is kind of a new thing. There's a few guys on 30s that are doing 60s, uh, but that seems to be uh kind of the sweet spot right now. So our data has Has shown for dry land scenarios where your yield environment's likely to be uh bale or less. Uh, in every case we have seen a yield increase on the land acre basis. Sometimes it's significant, sometimes it's not. Average is about 14% higher than solid 40s. So that's been a big movement right there. You can cut your your seeding rate in half automatically and not only have the same yield, but actually have improved yield. Now, there's a little bit of a caveat because in a yield environment of say 750 pounds and higher, strongly suggests staying on your solid 40s. So in a light water situation, and certainly in the more water you have on a pivot strongly uh encourages the use of solid 40s or solid 30s. And in between, we're we're still teasing that out. So there's an opportunity right there. The interesting thing, because we're water deficit, we don't run into a lot of trouble on the plants getting just uh excessively large and vegetative. Unfortunately, our water situation keeps that under check. So, yes, the plants are larger, but not to a detrimental effect for the most part. Uh so we you know, we have had some looks at some harvest efficiency issues and weed control. You know, to me, uh, if you're going to a wide row system in our environment, and maybe in y'all's as well, I don't know what you that you're going to save anything on weed control per land acre. In fact, I think it's probably more important than ever because you're you know you're not going to get canopy closure on that 80-inch row here. Uh so you may actually have more uh more weed pressure. But, you know, we've had some growers that want to go these 80-inch rows, these wide rows, and then want to spread out seed along the row to thinner populations. And I think that's where some of the potential disasters lie, because you know, uh just cutting it in half and and remaining at your normal down the row seeding rate, I think is probably the the best option there. Uh because you know you go on on 80-inch rows and now you're you're thinging it out down the row and you have a stand failure, uh, you have a disaster to deal with all of a sudden. Uh and as many people know, we're in a stripper harvest uh environment here for the most part. And the last thing you want to do is have this big gangly plant that uh has a lot of vegetated branches and uh a huge stalk, and you're trying to shove that thing into a stripper row unit. Always tell people that's a good way to lose your religion because about the 200th time you have to get off that stripper and and unplug those row units, you're wanting to go back to solid 40s. So, yeah, just kind of be careful with that, I think. You know, the the other aspect of of reducing seeding rates is just like Guy put it, how low can you go? And that's our kind of the our mantra on that. You can go low, uh especially in our low water situations. You know, I have data from our on-farm race trials where I've seen the same yield on dry land from 10,000 plants to 40,000 plants. You can make the same yield. So there are some options for lowering that. Same thing on irrigated, you know, you can make kind of the same yield with 18,000 plants as you can with 40. Now, as you reduce those, so that that gives growers options, even within your road configuration system, you can lower that seeding rate, but okay, now you're you're playing with moisture. So say you don't have enough planting moisture and you've got a rough stand, and now you're gonna have skips. So I was interested in Tyson's comments about this interplant competition. I I've wanted that for years. And uh for better or worse, you know, you have these ideas in February and they seem like a good idea, then you have to implement this trial, and you're like, what idiot came up with this idea. But we we've on our second year of a uh Texas State Support Committee funded project where we're looking at exactly that. So we overplant and then we thin down to a couple of populations, and then we're actually planning some spaces that pretend like it's delayed emergence for whatever reason. So we're coming back at two weeks and three weeks. Well, to simulate a two-week and three-week delayed emergence down the road in a in a very strategic fashion. And just like Tyson suggested, those those lady mergers, and of course, I I I I learned this in my six months of being a corn expert before taking this job, and I use that in air quotes. But you know, that you you hear the corn folks talking a lot about uniformity of age, and I've always wondered, is that really important in cotton? Because cotton is so compensatory, as we know. Well, the real answer is yes, it does matter. Uh, so in our non-uniform stands, uh, we did see reduce yield. Uh fiber quality didn't differ that greatly, interestingly enough. But uh those lady mergers for the most part became weeds. Uh, we're still in the middle of the of the analysis to figure out those adjacent plants that came up on time, you know, how how badly did it affect those neighbored plants yield. Uh but it's been an extremely interesting project. The ones that emerged through weeks after the the target date in many cases here did not even produce a bowl. So they were vegetative, made about six or eight nodes, and and they would were stuck within the canopy and and didn't do anything except use resources. So that that's been a real interesting study. Uh that you know, I think every grower out there has experienced this up and down stand and how hard it is to manage at the end of the season. And and now we've shown that yes, it does reduce yield somewhat. So that's been very interesting. But you know, in in our semi-arid environment where uh moisture is always lacking at planting, uh, you know, the battle's not over once we get emergence. So yeah, when when Simmer was talking about North Alabama and Times was talking about the higher plant, the higher seeding rates in in Tennessee, uh, yeah, you get to our northern panhandle, where uh honestly that's that's the Arctic Circle for cotton production, right? And uh and those those growers there, now they have good water, that's the the the big difference. But on those high irrigation capacity fields, they'll it's not unusual to see seeding rates from 55 to 75,000 per acre. Now, the reason they do that, they actually get a pretty good initial stand, but especially up in that northern panhandle, the frequency and and severity of the storms. It could be hail, it could just be wind, it could be uh sandblasting uh from wind. We actually have static burn here, and that's kind of an unusual thing to diagnose. So they're planning to lose some percentage of that stand. Uh so yeah, some of this discussion's not only just getting that that seed to germinate and emerge. Uh, we're having to consider very early in life that we're going to lose some of those those plants uh to some of those severe storms that we have out here. So yeah, it's a tricky question, and you have opportunities to lower seeding rates either through road configurations or through the sheer lower seating rates, but it always comes with risks and caveats for sure.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, you know, we we did some work here a while back and and we're trying to answer the question how low can you go, and really kind of ironed out that in in Georgia the sweet spot is somewhere between 25 and 30,000 seed per acre in terms of maximizing returns and maintaining uh yields. And it's really funny you brought up some of the some of the wide row and skip row stuff. I did that, I did six or seven or eight studies in in four years or so, and I only saw the wide row stuff do as good as a standard 36-inch row one time, and it was in a fi, it was in a dry land field. We had we planted it in April and didn't get another rain until June. And so that was the one situation where it did as good, but then the next year we planted it in that same field and caught rain and the standard 36-inch row out yielded it by bail, you know. So, I mean, we it's very similar to what you're talking about, Ken, in terms of if you got water or if rain falls, you know, by some odd reason in Lubbock, Texas, then hey, you you might be leaving something on the table there.
SPEAKER_03Sure. And you know, the the other interesting thing, we talk about yield, and then that, you know, pounds pay the bills, right? Uh, but one interesting thing we've had in our row configuration studies is those wide rows, those 80-inch rows compared to 40 specifically, uh, we're seeing in five out of seven trials uh significantly longer fiber quality. So that it's making a longer fiber. Again, we're we're doing the work right now to document the the water use efficiency aspect of that. Uh, but yeah, as we all know, fiber length is highly determined by things like water availability during the first week, three weeks of bloom. And I think our theory is that that's the reason that we're seeing that increased length is because you know we we got a more prolific root system across that gap. And the the the ratio of of root proliferation to uh to bowl load is such that it's given a little slight advantage to the fiber length, which hey, we we need all the help we can get in that regard.
Risk, Checking with Insurance/FSA, and Replants
SPEAKER_07No kidding. No kidding. You get a premium, that's always a good thing. So um we've talked a lot about uh some of the pros and cons with potentially reducing uh seeding rates, or are there any other ones that anybody feels like we should probably touch on real quick while we're kind of talking about, you know, differences in quality, differences in management, different things like that?
SPEAKER_03Well, I I guess one thing that to throw out there, and of course, this differs across the belt, but you know, if if you've been a solid row grower and you're considering going to a different road pattern, uh there are two calls you need to make before you make a change. One is to your insurance agent. Yeah. Make sure you understand, you know, what exactly that means as far as your coverage and your premium. And usually that involves if you've got a landlord convincing them to do that change as well. The others to FSA to fully understand what that does to your uh certification and your program payments. And as we've learned through this process of doing these studies, even here in the High Plains, some of the yield calculations differ by county. I'm sure that's probably the case uh in y'all's geography as as well. So it's it's not anything you can wrap up with a broad paintbrush. It's uh you really got to get the details of what county you're in and what production system you're in, whether it's here a dry land or irrigated, because those rules do differ.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, that's a that's a complicated thing. And once you go out past a certain space and write, there's a lot of a lot of rules on some of that. And then getting paid on a planted acre versus a land acre is a is a big to-do. So yeah, certainly some stuff to think about if you're hearing what Ken's talking about and you're in Texas and considering going to a to a 60 or an 80-inch type type row space in there. But what other like pros and cons? I mean, Tyson, you taught you already kind of touched on a lot of your management pitches and and some different things like that, and and even you know, talking about if you get a pack and rain or whatever, it didn't matter if you had a hundred thousand plants out there, if you had 20,000 seed out there, is that none of it's gonna do, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and and I think that's uh I don't want to step on Collins' toes here, but from a sea quality standpoint, you know, a few years ago we had some bad issues here in the mid-south, and and that's really where my comfort level with reduced senior rates came from because we had we had good seed and bad seed uh pretty evenly spread across the field, right? And oftentimes we don't see that when we have a replant scenario in the mid-south, typically you'll have a portion of the field that just there's no seed present, right? And that's that's why we get replant. When we had the seed quality issue, it was it pretty evenly impacted the entire field, right? So we just had a reduction in the number of plants that came up. Uh, and and that that's that's a little unique, right? Um, compared to uh a weather event that really stresses uh most of the weather events that we're experiencing now, that they're they're they're gonna hit a portion of the field, they're not gonna take one seed out of every three. Um, so it's important to understand that you know those you gotta have high quality seed to be able to target, you know, if we're gonna drop 35, hoping to get 28 up, I need every one of those seed to be of good quality.
SPEAKER_07Right, right. And that's something, you know, there's a big difference in sometimes what you plant and what you get, right? It's not about the number of seeds that you plant, it's about the number of plants that make it and contribute to yield at the end of the day, right? So that's something else to to discuss. And I mean, we've been doing seeding rate work forever, but I think the big take-home is that it's not about the seeding rate. You can plant 15,000, get 12,000 up and make the same, make the same yield, right? But at the end of the day, it's about the number of plants that make it and contribute to yield uh at the end of the day. But uh, Dr. Burke, what about pros and cons in your area of the world there?
SPEAKER_00I I think like I said, I think we got all types of road spacing going on. The guys are kind of comfortable with their equipment and all that, but when it comes down to seeding rate and stuff, I was just gonna I'm glad Tyson brought it up. A lot of times we go, especially to these on-farm trials, we start talking about seeding rates and stuff, and we do a lot of research, so we all probably know what our emergent population is. But I've been very surprised you go to a grower and ask, and they only tell you what they're planting, but they really don't know what actually came out. Nobody likes, and I think that was one thing that we start kind of preaching a lot. Hey, go do some stand counts to really know what are you making actually your yield off. It's yeah, you planted 40,000 seed, but that's not what came out, right? You may only have 30. You may only have 35 or something. So extra doing stand counts and kind of based off because that also kind of tells you, okay, what are you what's your actual plant population, like you hinted right earlier. And other thing, I guess, kind of on the same, you know, we're again I kind of work more on planters and all that. And I I think uh I'm just make guys cautious about just changing one thing. Let's say, you know, you got a crappy planter and you're talking pretty serious about how low can you go in this and that, that's not gonna change anything on the farm. You know, a lot of guys, they really, man, there's a lot of overseeding issues going on when we start doing stand counts and all that. I think that kind of that's where we're starting to kind of make them. And again, I don't work a lot on like space, roast pacings and other type of stuff, but when we start talking about it, I usually just try to like do the best job with your plant or whatever you're trying to do, you know, and then let's see if let's not make planter a factor, let's do a true seeding rate evaluation or a road pasting evaluation. And it's surprising. Like, I can bet you like there's probably good 20, 30 percent of growers, especially in Alabama, which don't know that Deer, John Deere makes single-laid cotton plates. Like when we go and show up and say, like, hey, Deer has a 64 cell plate, deer has a 32 cell plate. They're like, what? Nobody told us, you know, this and that. We're just trying to kind of, I don't know. We're we're trying to kind of help with whatever we know, you know, sharing with them. And and and that's why like I'm kind of glad a lot of calls I got on this year is they're trying to kind of look into some of those things.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, for sure. So, you know, guy, kind of kind of wrapping up the the pros and cons conversation, which we've you know discussed a lot, but then also moving into something that Tyson alluded to with seed quality and uh how that would change some of these decisions. You you know, you got to know what you got, right? And so before you make a you to make an informed decision. And so kind of talk about uh a few of those type things and what you would do in given situations.
Seed Quality: Warm and Cool Germ
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so you know, we've been encouraging our growers to look very hard at their seed quality, warm and cool germ for the past several years, and all the work that all the cotton specialists uh have participated in over the past couple of years has really revealed some things that I think are really neat and more meaningful to the grower without changing how the test is conducted. It's more or less how do we evaluate the outcome of those tests. So anyway, the uh you know, if we're talking about planting in cool conditions, you know, we have found that a shorter radical is much more predictive of what's actually going to happen in the field under those adverse conditions. Um so you know, we're obviously looking at making some changes at the cool in the cool test eventually, but it's it still brings value the way it is now. What we have found is the current test really is more meaningful when we have these ultra-cold nights like down in the 30s. Um that's where it's actually more meaningful, but usually those situations are where we're not gonna get a good stand anyway. With the warm test, we found that the abnormals are very meaningful. They are viable seed in a lot of cases, but they're gonna emerge later. So, kind of to reiterate some of the points previously made on uniformity of emergence, that's where something like that would would certainly come into play. But for right now, all we have is our standard warm and cool germs. So we obviously want to make sure you know those are in check. And the only legal requirement is surrounding warm germ. So we want to make sure it meets what's what's printed on the label uh and is you know a good seed. So, yes, we can make adjustments. Let's let's say, for example, if you have really high worm germ, like 95% plus, and we do have that sometimes, then yeah, we I feel a little bit better about making a reduction in our seeding rate, you know, but that that's very critical. So when we go down to those lower populations, yeah, we're saving a lot of money, but just like others have said on here, we have to make sure we're getting a good stand with what we are planting. And by planting in good conditions and high quality seed and all that, but it's important that they're fairly equidistantly spaced so we don't have these large skips. So we did some work a few years ago where we were just trying to re-evaluate our uh replanting recommendations. Um, and what we found was in general, if 30% of the planted area is three-foot skips or greater, that's usually the point where we can justify replanting. Uh, what was neat in all that is riding by and looking at a field like that is you're kind of on the fence about it. And depending on who you ask, uh you may or may not, you know, some growers may replant that, other ones would be more likely to keep it. Yeah. But that that was really interesting to see. The obvious ones where you get a really good stand or a really, really bad stand, you know, we we we can kind of breeze on past that and don't waste much time making that decision. But uh where it's critical, it was really interesting to see, you know, how some people thought about that. Um, but you know, with the expense we have in seed, we want to minimize that the best that we can. Right. Um as we learned last year, we're not necessarily home free once we get a stand. Well, we've kind of always thought that, but we had you know some wet conditions came in here in mid-May of last year, and our stands just digressed. Uh, it was also cooler. So, you know, a lot of growers planted, had a good stand, and then it just started going south with seedling diseases and things like that. Now that's a rare situation, but you know, that's that's one of those situations too where we don't want to be too low, where you know, we're right on the edge of a of a replant anyway, and we don't want to do that if we can help it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, you know, I know I'm on the subject of seed quality, I guess this is one of my pet peeves. Over the years, but you know, C's expensive, and we hear our our clients talking about that. But in our grower meetings always ask, you know, okay, C's expensive. So how many of y'all found out what the actual cool and warm germination percentages were for the lots you just spent thousands of dollars on, or even better, go to the nth degree like North Carolina State does and uh and conduct some some more uh on-site uh germination test and about you know two or three hands go up. Uh folks are not using that germination percentage, and then as Guy indicated, I mean, heck, if you got a 95 warm, 90 cool uh and another lot that has 82, 62, uh you should be managing those two lots differently, right? Yeah. We don't see that happening. You know, things when when planting uh a planting window appears and things are going in the ground really well, uh growers just don't slow down, they get everything in, understandably. Uh, but gosh, let's do some homework this time of year for us. We hadn't started planting yet, but uh uh do some homework pre-plant and at least know what your seed lots are uh what their quality is, and uh we just don't see that enough.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, and so kind of going back to the seed quality piece of this, and I mean, guy, you mentioned where if you get a 95 warm, which again is not uncommon, right? You see some stuff like that, it's just printed 80% on the back. It could be higher than that, right? And so um, but what about you know, the legal standards 80% on warm, but there's not really one for for cool germ and so let's say you get into a situation, guy, where you're at like 80-82 percent warm, really you're within the legal uh area there, but then your cool is 55 or 50, you know, where would you start with some of that stuff increasing seeding rates, or would you kind of stay where you are? Is there any place, I guess, where you would say, hey, keep that seed light and increase your seeding rate, or would you rather just say, hey, go swap that out and get something else?
SPEAKER_01No, so I wouldn't swap it out necessarily. So we we tend to see a very wide range in the cool test anyway. And I think it's important to remember that the cool test the way it is now is is a vigor test. It's not really a good predictor of actual stands. All we can really say is a seedlot with a high cool germ is probably gonna be more vigorous than something with a low cool germ in cool conditions. Um, but it's not an indicator of what percent you're what what percent stand you might achieve. So a 40% cool germ is not uncommon. Um, but you may have one lot that's a 40 cool and another lot that's a 65 cool germ. Really the the decision then is if we have to plant through adverse conditions, we're gonna go with that one with the higher cool germ.
SPEAKER_07Right.
SPEAKER_01And save the other one, assuming they're both, you know, sound in terms of warm germ, we're gonna save the other one to for just better conditions.
SPEAKER_07Right, right. And I and you know, so we're not gonna make a recommendation and say, hey, if you have something that's a 40 cool and we're in bad situations to increase the seeding rate, is that is that right? You don't tell people to do that?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, we we do a little bit, you know, with within reason. Um, but a lot of times it's those conditions are either right on the line where you know it's it's suitable heat units, but it's not ideal. That's where a lot of those things come into play.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_01In some years, though, it's just blatantly obvious. We, you know, it's too cool that we don't need to be planting cotton of any kind.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um, and and likewise, in other situations where conditions are just nice, let's roll on with essentially everything.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
Planting Depth Dusting And Moisture
SPEAKER_01Uh assuming Warm Germ is is in check. Yeah, back to the comment on Warm Germ, you know, I uh the situation we're in right now is we're dry, and there are some folks planting today. Um, next week is kind of when we typically unleash everybody and recommend planting cotton. Anything earlier than that, we worry a little bit about uh cotton becoming mature, too early in August, which can be a wet month for us. But we are dry uh right now. Heat units are are nearly ideal for the rest of this week, and then it'll cool down some next week. Um, but the first thing that growers want to do in our state when uh conditions are dry is plant deep to chase moisture. So this ties into those comments on how low can we go in terms of seeding rates and things of that nature. Uh planting deep to me is a very big concern. Now, the problem with all that is you can get away with it. There are several times when we plant deep to try to chase moisture and we get good stands. You know, I would only do that if we had really warm weather and moisture was the only thing limited. But when we're planting deep or anything more than seven-tenths of an inch in our state anyway, and in our soils, uh, we're only adding stress to the plant and we're prolonging the time it's gonna take to emerge anyway. So when when we're already dry and we try to plant deep to chase moisture, unless it rains, we're only gonna get drier. All right, so a lot of times planting deep, we have enough to sprout the seed, but not enough for it to fully emerge. And so, if especially if it's hot, it can fry those seedlings as they're coming out of the ground. Uh whereas if we got a rain sometime in there, you know, the you you might come out smelling like roses and everything looks great. Um, but we can get too much rain at times and form a crust, and planting deep is very, very dangerous in that scenario. So I have been very, very surprised at how often we can plant into bone-dry dirt, very shallow. I I've been very surprised at how long seed will sit there and stay viable.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um, even in hot soils, as long as it's bone dry. If it's in marginal moisture, that's a little bit different question.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_01But uh, if we planted shallow in bone-dry dirt and just wait on a rain, I've been very pleased with how well we can get a good stand by doing that.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I gotta tell you, like, man, it's a little different for us. We do not like dusting it in at all. Like I would much rather prefer to have the rain and then plant after than to put it out there. You know what I'm saying? Like, and so like I chase it, and then we got a big rain coming, like chase the moisture until you can't, and then man, don't plant. And I I think that I'm not telling, I'm not trying to say like you're wrong and I'm right, but like I feel like maybe our silt loams just because we can get saturated and stay saturated and we can ripe the seed, may be very different than than your sandier textures. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_07Well, I I think it's fair to say I don't like to dust it in. I like to wait for a rain, plant in the moisture, let the stuff come up, a rain will come, you know, whatever. I don't think anybody likes to dust it in. If we get our backs against the wall, though, we can do it and get away with it. Now, what's funny is that I was having a conversation with one of my colleagues here at Georgia the other day about dusting cotton in. You just go real shallow and cover barely cover it up, but Ken, out your way, if you do something like that, the wind can uncover the seed, which is absolutely crazy uh to me. So you have to plant it deep enough that it's not in moisture, but not so shallow that the wind is gonna blow dust off of the seed.
SPEAKER_03And that does happen. And of course, just dusting it in here uh becomes extremely popular the closer we get to the insurance deal. Right. But uh both Tyson and and and Guy both mentioned about soil texture, and I'll add just field history. So, you know, we're we're always chasing moisture here. We rarely have a plant in rain that everything's just great. Uh so you know, you you you know how that how it is. You you dig in the furrow and you try to see, okay, where's the moisture line? And I'm continually amazed at our grower cooperators where we put trials, these guys are experts, right? Because they know that field up and down. And they'll tell you, I can do this on this field, but I can't do it on this other field. And so they'll they know from history, and I always say when we're diagnosing things, when we're trying to figure out things like seeding rates and and seed depth, man, field history is so important to know. And a lot of times we don't have that luxury as extension specialists, but those growers and consultants out there do, and they know, you know, I can't tell you how many times I've I've planted a race trial out here and it's dry, and we look at the forecast, there's nothing uh in the next week and a half uh of any substance coming in terms of rainfall, and we'll dig, we'll find the moisture line, and and you know, that guy will put it either a half inch or sometime three-quarter inch below because he'll look uh cap at the you know the wind forecast, which unfortunately they do a great job predicting. They're not as good on rainfall, but they we can predict wind very, very well here. And these guys are calibrated very well to know, okay, I need to go about a quarter inch deeper because I know we have two wind events before this thing's gonna come up, and they'll nail it every time. So field history and knowing that field so well and know what's worked in the past is so key to success on this.
Planter Setup: Meters, Depth, Downforce
SPEAKER_07Yeah. And you know, we even though, right, we don't like to be in those situations, you know, guy, you mentioned that, hey, you can make it work sometimes. And then it's just like, oh, okay, well, that's what I'll do. And and, you know, in a situation like we're in in Georgia, where it's a, you know, we were talking before we got started, it's a historic drought for us. I planted a study almost two weeks ago now, and I put it deeper than I ever would, but it's a hundred percent dry land. We put the seed below the moisture line to ensure that it wasn't gonna run out by the time it came up. Um, that whole field was pushing, you know, six days after, and we had a stand, you know, that next Monday, right? So, I mean, there's there's always caveats to stuff. And of course, the biggest caveat for me in that situation was hey, we can get away with this because there is zero rain in the forecast. But of course, if something had popped up, which tends to happen, not right now, obviously, because we're in this terrible drought, but if a rain were to have popped up whenever I did that, I would Tyson, you said something earlier that I thought was really funny, and I say a lot, I would have had the opportunity to revisit that field. And so, um, you know, there's caveats to all this, but I think the big take home with a lot of this stuff, Ken, is what you said, man. And these guys know their fields, uh, they know what they can get away with, they know what, you know, in your particular situation, they know what an irrigation system is capable of, right? And so, um, all really good stuff. And and another thing that Guy mentioned that I thought was really interesting was the was the replant uh discussion. And you know, my replant recommendation has kind of changed, Guy. And it's not it's not necessarily based on a test that we did or whatever, but a lot of times whenever people call me, it's in that situation where people uh they're on the fence, right? And you said it was 30% of the planted area and all this good stuff, and you have a because you're a real scientist and you have all this stuff to back up all the recommendations that you give. But I tell growers if they call me about replanting that, hey, if you needed to do it, it would have been done. And I said, nine times out of 10, I'm gonna leave it. But it comes back to another thing that Tyson mentioned earlier, where uh a grower told me this past March that he had that situation happen to him last year. They got like a five or six inch rain in one day, and but the cotton some of the cotton wound up coming up, and he said, Man, I'm gonna leave it. I'm gonna see what it does, you know. So he did it, but it became a picker efficiency problem. And so he had some uh big gaps and stuff like that, and he said, Man, the picker really did not like that. And so, you know, another big key in all this discussion is not just seeding rate and getting a stand, but uniformity in that stand as well. And so a lot of this stuff uh comes into play. But you know, we we've talked a lot about seed quality, we've talked about the number of seed we're gonna put in the field and the number of plants that we need to wind up with, and even some planting tips with some of the weather uh that we're seeing right now. But man, a big part of that and a big investment that these guys make every year is on their planner. And so you've got to ensure that your planner is set up right. And Dr. Virk, I know that you've mentioned a few things, but why don't you just walk us through a couple of the major things that these guys need to be looking at on their planners before we pull into the field to get going?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, for sure. Uh, I think that's a pretty big part of the puzzle, you know, getting that right. We can, it's almost like even our trials, we have planned everything. We're gonna do this trial, that you show up and you look at a planner like, yeah, that ain't happening, you know. Oh seriously, we had a uh we we had a trial at North Alabama, like all the nice planners, all of this, and the grower had his nice planner tied up with planting. So he gave us like his older sixth roll, which had a corn tight plates and everything. And we're like, Yeah, we're not doing a trial like that. No. Um, but I I'm just kind of looking at some of my pointers. I put in a cotton newsletter recently. But I think we are still, you know, like I said, uh, I think guy was saying earlier, maybe we got another week or so, I think, over our way here, may fuss, you know, kind of like, hey, go plant. I think there's still times the guys who planters are in the shop, you know, that you got the opportunity to really kind of look at some things, make sure they're all kind of kinks and everything else is what I usually try to kind of tell go from inside out in a way. The very and the probably the most important thing is the seed meter on that, right? Because we talk about all this seeding rate and other stuff. You can you can say I'm putting 30,000 seed in and might be putting 50,000 seed in. That happens a lot. Um, brushes and other stuff, and especially when we start getting into this uh precision seed meter, which I kind of highly recommend, you know, growers to kind of invest in because they kind of pay for itself. Like you're able to back down your population, you know, or your seeding rate. You can do a math on how much you kind of saved on that even in one season or over your farm, it's easily able to pay for some of the precision components on a seed meter. We're not talking about going buying a brand new planter, you know, we're just talking about installing some precision components and using a singulated plate and stuff like that. Now, one of the key things is, and which again, a lot of growers don't know, you know, that whether that's a John Deere dealer or if you have a precision planting dealer nearby or or even a case, you know, they have these planter test stands that you can actually ask them to come and run your seed meters on. And I just recently figured out because we start running some numbers on our phone, you know, it's like$20 to$25 a seed meter. They come check out, and it's not they're they're not just looking at seed meter, they don't even look at your road unit and everything. And it's less than, you know, even if you have a 12-year-old planner, that's$300, probably the best money you'll spend making sure. And they give you a discount on if like the vacuum seals or anything needs to be needs to be replaced, that you actually get a discount when you ask them to test their seed meters. And I think it becomes more important for the growers. Uh, this kind of goes a little bit on the technology side. If your planter does not have a seed monitor, that becomes more critical because you're not gonna know what your planter is doing once you start rolling. You know, and we all know that. We've all been there that a lot of our block planters are like that. You want set up and you go, you're not really knowing, you know, until you run out of seed or something. So I think that becomes pretty critical, making sure that your seed meter is probably like in the best shape. You know, some of the guys, you may want to put new vacuum seals and lids and all that. Um, may want to buy some plates, they're not warped, how they're stored. Um, look at that. Other big thing I would say that I have noticed over the lot of years of kind of working with cotton on planters is the vacuum setting. You know, especially our varieties, they differ so much by seed size and you know, weight and all that. Because I have a lot of growers sometimes calling like, well, this plant was doing perfect. I was planting in this field and we went to another field and now it's you know not doing what it's supposed to be doing. And I'm like, what happened in between? Well, we stopped planting and then we changed varieties, you know. And and that's like a lot of our standard seed plates are so sensitive to vacuum, you know. Just an example, if you're using a John Deere standard plate, they they ask you to run anywhere from six to eight pounds of pressure on that vacuum on that, you know. You go to uh, and if you were running eight on one variety, you go to another variety, you may be getting a lot of multiples on that if it's a smaller seed. So I think dialing in some of those settings, even as you're trying to think about, okay, what varieties am I planting? And the reason I'm saying the vacuum is when you're when you're running those seed meters on a test stand, those guys can run it for you and tell you, hey, on this variety, you actually need to be more like eight or nine, and on this one you may want to do six. Uh that's that's I think another important part, I would say. Uh we were talking about dusting in, I know earlier, uh seed depth. You know, that's pretty critical. And I was thinking about because we did some stuff back when I was in Georgia camp, different seating depths in cotton, and the most variability we had in our seating depth was the plot where we barely dusted it in because naturally by default, there's a lot of variability across the units, you know, just because, and then we're trying to put it very shallow. We actually had some row units that they just laid seed on the ground, you know, the same exact setting. And and that's the other critical thing. And I have learned myself, and I usually ask growers at our county meetings, hey, how big of a planner do you have like 12 or 16 rows? I'm like, well, how many rows do you check seed depth on? And they say, well, two, four. And and there have been in trusted league one or two guys are like, we check all 12, you know, and I'm and I ask them, like, what do you notice? The big thing I'm gonna hit on here is our tendency is when we go behind the planner and looking for what depth we're gonna plant at, you know, and we whether we check it at one one row unit or a few row units, we find that setting, we go across the planter and set the T-bar handle exactly the same across the whole plant, right? Everybody does that. I've done that for years before we kind of start looking at some of this. And and that screws us up a little bit more than what it, you know, or we're thinking, because our goal is not to make the plant or T-bar handle exactly the same on the top. Our goal is to actually make it plant the same. And there's usually a one-notch up and down difference there, you know, among the row units, even on a brand new planter. And and that's why we start kind of emphasizing, you know, you're probably only going to do this once, but we call either that either there's a you can you can put some blocks under each row unit and see how far that double disc opener is going and trying to find that setting where you're gonna plant your cotton. Or uh a great tool we start using a lot. I've even recommended to our growers here across the state. It's called Set and Seed. And it's like a$140,$50 kind of piece of block that this company makes, and you can actually easily move it under different units, and it kind of helps you find which what depth exactly it is at. You know, I think that's another thing that kind of pays off pretty quickly. If you have one row unit completely shallow, either planting shallow or deeper or something, you're able to mitigate that. The other big part with depth is the downforce, I would say. Uh especially, I guess, every state. You know, our soil conditions change, especially like our our part of the world, North Alabama, a lot of no-till and strip till. There's a lot of varying amount of residue uh in the field, and then we're just using those mechanical type springs as a downforce. It's some part of the field it's not enough, some part of the field it's too much. And a lot of studies we've done, you know, again back in Georgia on downforce in cotton. If you don't have enough, it's gonna plant shallower, so you're not meeting your exact seeding depth. But if you have too much, now you're actually compacting the furrow. And then I think we alluded to that earlier when cotton seeds trying to emerge, it's actually pushing harder now against that compacted soil, and it's actually spending more energy trying to come out. So there's not even delayed emergence, there's even non-uniformity going on. So that's why I I've kind of make sure you know what your down force is in a way, but also if you have an opportunity, I usually say on a planter side, after seed monitor, if I would put anything on a planter, it would be an active or hydraulic down force. So that way it's always kind of changing and making sure that we're meeting our required seed depth. Uh, I think that would be another kind of recommended technology and stuff. Uh, other stuff, I guess it's just, you know, depending on what type are you running, strip tail, no-tail, I say like row cleaners is a big one. Uh, I've seen guys running these planters nosediving where the row cleaner is almost creating a rooster tail out of it, you know. Um, the idea is to move the the clods or the stubble or anything in the front of the planter before it creates a furrow, you know. And and that's why the what they call is uh the row cleaner should be set up that it should barely kiss the ground, you know, which means it shouldn't dug in, dig into the ground, or it's not too high that it's not touching it. Uh so that way it can move stuff out of the ground. Uh, and the last thing I'm gonna mention, or the second last, let's say, closing wheels. We got a lot of questions on that across the state, and it varies by where you are in the state. Some likes the original, like the solid Vs that comes with the John Deere. We also have some of the single press type wheel. You know, it's gonna vary based on where you are. The big thing is are we closing that furrow properly? Where whatever our seeding depth is, are we making sure that there's enough so good seed to soil contact is the key, I guess. And the last thing I'm gonna say is uh regular checks as as you start planting. I think I make a mistake of it where like we're in a hurry, we've got to plant so many acres or so many studies, and you you do your due diligence early on on checking on. Once you kind of get halfway, you have changed varieties, you have changed fields, sometimes you change soil types, and we're calling still running the same setup, and that kind of shows up later when the cotton comes up. So, so that'd be a big thing. The more checks you can do to make sure that everything's getting planted right. So hopefully that kind of covers some of the big points, I think.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, for sure. I think that covered most of the planner setup. It's funny you bring up the road cleaners, man. I've seen some guys with row cleaners that are like down in there, you know, but what they're doing is like using it and it's pulling up moisture, which is just crazy. You know, it's like a it's a thing that works for them. And uh, we've got the same kind on our planner here, and I I've never done it that deep. But Tyson, you mentioned, you know, looking at closing, you know, getting the road cleaners and getting the cover out of the way because y'all are in no-till country up there, and a lot of times y'all have some of those high residue covers and and things like that. So anything you want to add to uh what Simura was talking about just a second ago?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I I think uh here recently we've not been as aggressive with road cleaners. I think part of that is the higher speed that we're running and we're running these high-speed planters now. Um, I think it's sort of that we've we've been more aggressive. Uh, we are seeing uh a little bit more of an issue with slugs. If we don't get that residue away from those young seedlings, those uh slugs, especially in cloudy conditions, can feed on up into the morning and really wreak havoc on the stand. The worst thing in the world would be you pick up the row cleaner, you plant straight into the residue, and it's so wet you fail to close the furrow. And that's where we see potential stand failures from slugs. Um, which there is no, I mean, you can spend$20 an acre on bait, and it it by the time you get it and put it out, it's too late. Um, we gotta get the furrow closed, like Simmer said. There's a whole bunch of different options. I like what I like, and every other grower likes what they like. You know, you can get to the same point with a lot of different approaches, but but regardless, especially on lighter ground or ground that where you do have a lot of residue, corn residue, or even cotton residue from previous years, just trying to remove that residue away from the road, give those young young siblings a chance to to move, grow past that potential slug injury uh is important for us.
SPEAKER_07Yeah. All right, so we've covered a lot of stuff, but uh anything else that anybody wants to add real quick before we before I close this up.
Strip Till Timing And Slugs
SPEAKER_01Uh along with planter setup, I think any pre-plant tillage is also important to consider.
SPEAKER_07Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And a lot of the modern, well, we have a lot of strip tillage here in North Carolina and on a good bit of no-till. Um, so back to my earlier comment on planting depth. Um sometimes in no-till situations we have to plant a little deeper just to get the fur to close up properly. Uh so that, you know, and we deal with with slugs as well. But a lot of our modern strip till equipment is better about this, but you know, a lot of them now will form like a little bed, which is nice. Um, but some of your older models will kind of dig a gully, especially in soils that tend to clod up a little bit. And so what we've recommended for the past several years is actually making your strip tillage well ahead of the planter. Occasionally you'll see it tied to the planter, and there's nothing wrong with that as long as it's good moisture and we can go ahead and get a stand. What we've also seen several times, though, is if we plant right behind the strip till rig and then get a rain, that whole furrow will collapse, and then now your seed is planted two inches or three inches deep, and you know what's going to come from that. Um, so and that's automatically a replant scenario. So we we've recommended strip tilling well ahead of the planter to allow enough time for a rain to to colla collapse that furrow, and uh, you know, so we don't end up in that situation.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, for sure. And I mean, I I've seen what you're talking about. We do a lot of strip till here on the station, and I mean a lot of these newer things do um make a nice bed, you know, and it's it's easy to plan on some of that stuff, but but there are some of these older ones out there that just kind of puff it up a little bit, and then you can sink it down in there and it'll it it'll wind up in a tough situation. Uh Ken, what were you going to touch on real quick?
Brown Bag Seed Volunteer Cotton
SPEAKER_03Well, I was gonna touch on a a couple of uh aspects, you know, kind of going back to seeding rates. You know, one unique thing we have here, maybe some of y'all have some of this as well. You know, we have brown bag seed, uh some conventional seed that's grown locally and and processed locally, and and uh of course much cheaper per acre. And it it's a it's a great option. That there are some good varieties out there uh that will do quite well uh at a much lower uh cost per acre. Uh and I always recommend to those guys don't play with lower seeding rates to save money because you've already saved your money. Just make a stand with this stuff, right? Uh so that that's always been uh an interesting conversation, particularly because uh, I would say about half of the brown bagged acres, uh, they're getting it treated and bagged, and they have no idea what the germination is. Uh they don't even test it, right? Because it's their own seed. And that's that's a little dangerous because of things we've been talking about. The other unique thing I've run into here, uh, of course, with our semi-arid environment, uh, and and Guy mentioned it a while ago on dry soil can store seed rather well. So we have a uh in some cases I would say our number one weed, quote unquote, in our cotton field is volunteer cotton. And I've run across a few growers who take that calculation into their seeding rate for their new crop because they know they're gonna have some. You know, I've seen as high on some of my counts, I've seen as high as 10, 20% of stand that came from volunteer. So you start accounting for that, all of a sudden, yes, you can drastically decrease your seeding rate if you know you have a large volunteer load that's gonna be in that row, particularly in a no-deal situation here. So that that's been very interesting to watch, and it's kind of a weird thing to to uh to account for, but uh heck if you got it, uh use it, right? Right. That that's been uh a a different aspect, certainly in in terms of the seating rate uh conversation. Right.
Wrap Up Sponsor And Song
SPEAKER_07Yeah, that's certainly something that I don't think many of us uh outside uh outside of Texas have to worry about too much. All right, well, thank you guys for uh listening to this episode of the Cotton Specialist Corner Podcast. Again, want to thank Dr. Ken Leger out in Texas, Dr. Simmerberg at Auburn, Dr. Tyson Raper at Tennessee, and Dr. Guy Collins at NC State uh for joining us and covering such a wide range from seeding rates to planner setup. And I hope that you guys find this useful. Uh, certainly want to thank Cotton Incorporated for the sponsorship of this effort. And uh, if y'all have any questions or any requests for episodes in the future, feel free to reach out. Thank you.
SPEAKER_04Well, you take all my money, you take all my pride, you take up all my time, and then you take me for the ride. I got cotton picking, cotton picking, cotton growing blue Lord, I can't live without you, but living with you make a man more loom. Well at first you grow so slowly, but I can't make it stop worry, worry about you till I'm tired of living on I can I can take I can take and cut and grow and blue I can live without it on the power of thing on my dick you said the pile you can make the pile has to make the co-well cutting picking cutting grooving Lord I can live without you still the only two Well if it was a wee day They say they call you called me You promised me the moon and then I wish I wasn't bone I got I can take it Hott and take it hadn't grown I can't live without you Living with you what if I gonna do one rain away from glory, but it's still the only life I would choose. Well I finally made some money, it's the cotton picking cotton growing blue.