GMO Cotton's not perfect.....WHAT??

For two years now, I have raved about the benefits of the GMO cottonseed that The Farmer I Kiss plants.  So why now would I say it's not perfect??  Well, that's because besides a beautiful newborn grandchild, nothing in the world is perfect.

This is a low lying lake area that Daniel was not able to plow after planting

It took me several tries to get permission from Daniel to show these photos.  Why?  Because farmers don't like their fields to look messy and this is pretty messy.  If you are not all that familiar with cotton fields, you may just think that this is a photo of cotton waiting to be harvested.  You would be wrong.  This part of the field has been harvested.  What you are seeing is called Volunteer Cotton.

Our varieties are storm resistant, but some locks still wind up on the ground

Throughout the growing season, locks of cotton can fall out of the burr to the ground.  Also, as we harvest in the fall, pieces of cotton fall to the ground.  Both of these situations result in cotton which contains cottonseed lying on the ground.  The next spring, those seed sprout and grow Volunteer Cotton in the blank spaces between the newly planted rows of cotton, essentially making those Volunteer Cotton plants "weeds."

The Volunteer Cotton plants usually sprout early in the season, and are more mature than the cotton in the rows. 

The smaller stalks are from the cotton planted in the rows.  The larger stalk is a Volunteer Cotton stalk.

The definition of a weed on a cotton farm is any plant that is growing and taking valuable nutrients and more valuable water away from the rows of planted cotton.  The rouge Volunteer Cotton plants must be controlled just like any other weed because they are not harvestable in the fall.  (Disclaimer:  There are ways to harvest cotton that is not in the rows, but that requires additional harvesting equipment, fuel or trips over the field which makes the process close to impossible.)

Notice the small amount of cotton that is left on the ground after the cotton stripper has passed.

So here's the part about GMO cottonseed being less than perfect.  The particular varieties of GMO cottonseed that we plant has the genetic trait from the pansy flower that allows us to spray glyphosate herbicide (the chemical in Round-Up) in the field of growing cotton.  This kills the weeds but leaves the cotton unharmed.  But since the Volunteer Cotton that we are considering a weed is resistant to the herbicide, it does not die like the other weeds.

This is in another low lying lake area on the farm of a neighbor.  Notice the harvested rows of bare stalks.

To control the Volunteer Cotton, you have to get the plows back out and plow between the rows of cotton.  Not having to plow the land after it is planted is the whole idea behind planting GMO cottonseed with the glyphosate resistant genetic trait.  The Farmer I Kiss would get to plant and then leave the soil undisturbed to preserve the moisture, but the Volunteer Cotton issue is requiring an early plowing.

This is more representative of the Volunteer Cotton population where the field was plowed early after planting.

One solution is to rotate between varieties of cottonseed that would have resistance to another herbicide such as Dicamba.  That way, the field could be sprayed with a herbicide that your planted cotton is resistant to, but the Volunteer Cotton would not be resistant to it.  Another solution is to rotate the fields with wheat or grain sorghum from year to year.  This allows for different types of herbicides to be used to rid the fields of the Volunteer Cotton plants.  We do have a rotation plan, but we plant cotton for 2 to 3 years in a row before rotating.  So in the meantime, The Farmer I Kiss gets to plow, which he really loves to do, so he really doesn't mind the fact that GMO cotton is not perfect!

When this is the result, some small imperfections are easy to deal with!

Updated:  After a few questions, I thought it would be good to add a little more information.  (1) Why not just leave the Volunteer Cotton Plants?  They get really big and grow very big stalks, which takes a huge amount of water.  Something we have very little of out here next to the Chihuahuan Desert! (2) Why not spray a different herbicide before you plant to kill the Volunteer Cotton and the weeds.  The herbicide that you would have to use can damage or destroy growing grain crops that may be too close to your field.  Drift with these other herbicides is a big problem and one that we choose to avoid.  Round Up does not have quite the drift problems of other herbicides, so we use that exclusively at this time.  (3)  What kind of machine would you have to use to harvest the Volunteer Cotton.  I posted a link here to see the different header (part out in front that gathers the cotton) that would be put on the cotton stripper to get the cotton that is either not in rows or in ultra narrow rows.  It would mean changing out the the front part of the stripper, a pretty major task, then driving all over your field again, which is bad for compacting the soil and using lots of fuel.

You Might Be A Cotton Farmer If...

Every industry has it's own "Language."  Cotton farming is no exception.  Many of the terms and sayings around the cotton industry go back several generations, and while we don't Tromp cotton with our feet any more, the module builder does a might fine job of Trompin' cotton these days.  So taking a lead from Jeff Foxworthy and his Redneck gig, You Might Be A Cotton Farmer If... (PS There is a dictionary at the end!)

You've ever cursed a Boll Weevil 
You've ever visited with a neighbor on the Turn Row 
You've ever blew a hose on your 8400 
You've ever responded to "How's your day going" with "Oh, Fair To Middling"
You've ever spent all day Sand Fightin' 
You've ever been happy to see your Cotton Rowin' 
You've ever decided to plant 2 and 1 instead of Solid 
You've ever heard that Ol' Stanley's pump is Suckin' Air 
You've ever been concerned that the Table's Droppin' 
You've ever used a Quart of Topguard to fight your Root Rot 
You've ever had a buddy already Sprayin' For Worms because he didn't plant Bt 
You've ever Worried About the Wind because your neighbor didn't plant Round Up Ready 
You've ever chopped cotton with a crew of Hoe Hands 
You've ever been excited about a good Burn Down 
You've ever had to Cultivate because you are having trouble with Volunteer
You've ever been Strippin' 
You've ever ended up with too many Barks

Some of these are self explanorty, but I'll translate them anyway:

Tromp or Trompin': To compact the cotton for transport.  People used to get inside the cotton trailers and compact the cotton with their feet in order to get more cotton in each trailer.  Now the Module Builder has a hydraulic press that compacts the cotton into large blocks that are transported by Module Trucks to the gin.

Boll Weevil:  A vile little creature that causes so much damage to a cotton crop that many regions of the United States stopped growing cotton all together.

Turn Row:  Small dirt roads that lie around the perimeter of a field and allow room for farm machinery to turn at the end of the rows.

8400:  There are hundreds of model numbers for tractors.  This particular number happens to be a John Deere 8400 Front Wheel Drive Tractor.

Fair to Middling:  Refers to the USDA classing system used on cotton and Fair to Middling is about in the middle of the scale.  There are colors, strengths, lengths and other factors that lead to the final grade of a bale of cotton.  That grade determines the final price a farmer gets for his cotton.

Sand Fightin':  When a hard rain falls on farms that are mostly sandy soil, the surface quickly dries off and becomes smooth.  If the wind starts blowing, the smooth surface will begin to blow sand.  Blowing sand can burn the leaves off of a cotton plant in a matter of a few minutes.  Sand Fighters are very wide implements that have small rolling blades which dig into the soil and break up the smooth surface and prevent the sand from blowing.  They can be pulled very fast to cover a lot of acres in a short amount of time.

Cotton Rowin':  This is when the cotton first pops up out of the ground after planting.  The first day you can drive up and see a green streak down the row, your "Cotton's Rowin'."

2 and 1, Solid:  In this area of the United States, many farmers plant their cotton in Skip Row Patterns.  This leaves blank rows in between rows of cotton to give the plants more room for rain fall.  2 and 1 means that there are two rows of cotton with one blank row in between the next set of two rows.  Solid means there are no blank rows.  Row spacing comes into play here also.  Some cotton is on 40" wide rows, others may only be 30" row spacing.  This is all a personal preference by the farmer.

Suckin' Air:  The irrigation pump in the water well is pumping less water and some air because the water level in the well is dropping.

Table's Droppin':  The underground water table tends to rise and fall with the weather and also during the growing season when lots of irrigation systems are in use, leading to pumps "sucking air."

 Quart of Topguard:  The fungicide that was approved in 2012 for the treatment of Cotton Root Rot.  It is applied to the soil at the time of planting in quantities of one pint to one quart per acre.

Root Rot:  Several of my previous posts have dealt with the fungus we call Cotton Root Rot.  It lives in the soil and kills the cotton plants.

 Sprayin' for Worms:  Without the genetic trait for the resistance to the boll worm, a farmer must spray insecticide on his cotton many times throughout the growing season to combat the damage the boll worm causes to cotton.

Bt:  Cottonseed varieties that contain the genetic trait which makes the plant resistant to the boll worm.

Worried About The Wind: When a farmer plants genetically modified cotton in a field next to a farmer who plants non-genetically modified cotton, the wind direction must be considered before chemicals are applied in order to protect the farm with the non-genetically modified cotton from chemical damage.  Most farmers are very considerate of their neighbors in this respect.



Round Up Ready:  Cottonseed varieties that contain the genetic trait which makes the plant resistant to glyphosate herbicide, also known as Round Up.  Cotton grown with this trait can have glyphosate sprayed directly over the growing crop to control the weeds.

Hoe Hands:  Before herbicide was used to control weeds, large groups of farm workers would move from field to field chopping the weeds by hand with hoes. 

Burn Down:  After a field has been sprayed with herbicide and the weeds have died, you consider that a burn down.

 Cultivate: If you planted genetically modified cotton containing the Round Up Ready trait the previous year, the volunteer plants will be resistant to the herbicide and you must mechanically remove them by plowing with a plow called a cultivator.  Also, if you don't want to spray herbicide or plant non-genetically modified cotton, this simply refers to plowing your cotton crop and cleaning out the weeds between the rows.

Volunteer:  During harvest, locks of cotton are dropped and left in the field.  These locks of cotton contain cottonseed that will sprout the following spring.  These volunteer cotton plants are considered a "weed" since they are not in the row and are not easy to harvest.

Strippin': Dryland cotton is smaller than irrigated cotton and most harvesting is done with Cotton Strippers.  This refers to the way the harvester removes the cotton from the plant.  Sections of rubber flaps called bats and sections of long brushes rotate to strip everything from the stalk: leaves, burrs, cotton and all.  Larger cotton and much of the irrigated cotton use Cotton Pickers to harvest which use units that literally spin the cotton out of the burr taking only the cotton from the plant.

Barks:  Refers to the bark from the woody cotton stem.  This bark can make it's way into the cotton fibers and cause the grade of the cotton to come back marked "Bark."  This lowers the price a farmer will receive for that cotton since the bark must be removed from the fibers before it can be spun into thread and fabric.  Different factors can contribute to the problem, such as cotton that has died due to Cotton Root Rot.

I hope this clears up some of the language barrier that can occur as you read my blogs about cotton farming or if you ever find yourself leaning on the back of a pick up truck on the turn row talking about cotton to the Farmer I Kiss.  Leave me a comment with your own special definitions from your farming operations.

"If Only...": Even GMO Cottonseed Can't Survive A Desert Downpour

If only...the Farmer I Kiss was finished planting...It had been a stressful few weeks because the moisture was disappearing at a rate faster than the tractor could plant.  So the longer he planted, the deeper he had to push the seed into the soil.  With the first day of planting finally just peeking out of the soil, the rest of the seed were sitting about 2 1/2 inches deep...too deep to be planting cotton but doing it anyway to chase the last of the moisture.  Then it happened.  A 3 1/2 inch rain in about 30 minutes.  A Desert Downpour.

This was a field of planted cotton.

 If only...That's what Daniel kept saying as he shook his head, looking at the fields of standing water and buried cottonseed.  If only that rain had came 3 weeks earlier, then he could have planted very shallow, the seed would have emerged in just a few days, life would be good.  If only that rain had came 1 week later, the seed he had planted would have already been emerged and happily drinking it all up.  But "If only" didn't happen.  So now, the seed has too much soil washed in on top of it, the sun has baked it and even the very expensive GMO/Crossbred/Favorite cottonseed can't push through that.

Load # 2

If only...we didn't have to go back to the seed dealer for a new load of seed.  Most seed companies have a replant policy that allows the farmer to buy new seed at a discounted rate, so at least it won't cost quite what the first round did.  And our TOPGUARD fungicide for the Cotton Root Rot (which I have wrote about in previous posts Serendipity and No Fungus Among Us) should still be there waiting to protect the new seed.  Since this is only the second year that TOPGUARD has been used for Cotton Root Rot, a lot is still left to learn and this will be a great way to know how a Desert Downpour affects it for future crops.  Daniel is watching closely and jumping from field to field where spots dry up so he can get back in them and replant almost every acre.  Chihuahuan Desert 1...Wilde Farms 0...

TOPGUARD should still be waiting for the new seed.

 Bright side:  Even though the cotton will be a little later, it will now have a really good start, which is about 50% of the battle out here.  That rain will carry it through several weeks before needing another good drink.  We don't need a lot of rain to grow cotton out here next to the largest desert in North America, we just need it to fall at the right times.  If only...the Farmer I Kiss had a crystal ball... 

That seed costs WHAT!!!

Decision 2013: Drought Resistant & GMO Cottonseed Varieties leading the polls

About this time each year, the Wilde household takes on a full blown campaign atmosphere.  The Farmer I Kiss and I both have very strong opinions about which brand and variety of cottonseed to plant.  Lying around the house you will find lots of magazines and brochures conspicuously left opened to a favorite brand, or maybe a new, exciting variety.  Big red circles have been drawn around the front runners.

Waiting for our food at the restaurant...Daniel just happened to have some reading to do...

Underneath all the hub-bub, Daniel studies carefully to try and find just that right combination of crossbreed and genetic technologies which could give him just a tiny edge up on the Chihuahuan Desert.  The main concern right now is finding a variety that will tolerate both the extremely low humidity and extremely high heat which we have been experiencing the past few years.  Many brands have varieties that are proving to be drought tolarant, but not all droughts are the same.  Producing cotton with less rainfall is one thing.  Producing cotton with less rainfall, 10% humidity and 110 degree heat is quite another. This is where he depends on the years of cross breeding done by seed companies, followed by farmer planted trial plots to finally isolate the traits which will form the perfect "Edge of the Chihuahuan Desert" dryland cotton variety.

Last year in the Concho Valley, one particular brand and variety,  Deltapine 1044 seemed to beat all the rest in both production and quality.  Unfortunately, we didn't plant that variety.  We planted a variety that has been a top producer with excellent quality for several years, but just didn't hold up to the low humidity and high heat of 2012, FiberMax 1740.  Daniel likes to choose a variety that has a good showing from farm to farm in the farmer field trials.  Not the one that suddenly jumps out of no where to the front of one trial and not the one that lags at the bottom of all the trials.

I am pulling for one of the new-comers this year!

Daniel also has to take into consideration how early he will plant.  The relative maturity of varieties come in Early, Medium and Full season.  If he plants in mid to late May, that takes an entirely different variety than when he has to wait until late June.  Trying to guess the rainfall situation in May or June in order to pre-book a variety now does not always work out as planned!  A change in planting intentions can leave him with a barn of Full season seed while he frantically tries to locate somewhere to buy a barn full of Early seed!

Another vital issue is insect pressure.  Every storm from the south can bring in a new crop of boll worms.  These vile little creatures can strip a cotton plant clean in a matter of a few days.  That makes the bollworm resistant genetic trait (Bt) very important in the decision.  Thanks to the Bt trait, our farms have been insecticide free for five years.  A friend of ours decided three years ago to forego the Bt trait and planted conventional cottonseed.  He had to spray his fields four times with insecticide and still lost over 30% of the crop.  My brother-in-law farms cotton up on the plains north of here where there is very little insect pressure.  He plants cottonseed every year that does not contain the Bt genetic trait.  For us the choice is Bt genetics or lots of insecticide.

Here's hoping this will be waiting for Daniel's cotton stripper this fall!

So what variety of cottonseed is ahead in the polls?  Will it be one of the big name front runners or a small time dark horse that makes it's way to the planter boxes of the Farmer I Kiss?  More campaigning is needed before Decision 2013!

Cotton Farming doesn't take a winter holiday

Since we are in the dead of winter out here next to the Chihuahuan Desert, one might think that I see a lot more of the Farmer I Kiss.  After all, what would a cotton farmer do while it's too cold to grow cotton?  If I could find him, I would ask him!  So I decided to head out to the farm.

The Dirt Mover!!  Reminds me of a Transformer movie.

When I finally found Daniel, he was in his tractor with a big yellow dirt mover repairing the terraces that were damaged this fall when we had over 10 inches of rain. When fields have slopes to them, these terraces are built, which are really just small dirt dams all running parallel in the field allowing us to harvest and hold the rainwater and topsoil.  The parts of the fields that hold the water in front of the terraces had over filled after the "Hundred Year Rain Event" and finally broken through creating wash-outs which allowed the water to fill up in front of the next terrace.  

Wash out over knee high

Wash flowing into our coastal grass field

Luckily the terraces on the lower end of the field were big enough so that we didn't lose the water and topsoil.  Our coastal grass field caught the water on the other side (which means we should make some really great hay this spring!) 

Hay Hay Hay this spring!

Now comes the slow task of repairing each of the wash-outs without creating holes in the field.  And I do mean S-L-O-W!  One bucket at a time, Daniel finds soil from the right spot and slowly bumps his way back up the field to put the load in the wash-out.  Moving two inches of soil across the terraces on 200 acres of land, one bucket at a time, is certainly not as fast as those old Tonka Trucks used to be in my back yard.  Carefully repairing the terraces can take several weeks in order to not cause damage to other parts of the field.

Small wash out already repaired

Once the the wash outs are filled in, the soil must be put back into condition for raising cotton.  Daniel will hook his tractor to the chisel plow and plow the field from top to bottom.  The chisel plow is 20 feet wide and plows only about 3 to 4 inches deep.  This will only skim the top to loosen the soil and break up all the tractor and harvester tracks from the previous year.

Repaired terrace after running the chisel plow

After the farm has been chiseled, Daniel will hook his tractor on to the lister, a plow that makes beds, or rows, in the soil about 6 inches tall.  He will lay off nine 40 inch rows at a time.  These rows follow the contours of the terraces and also help to hold the precious rainfall we hope to receive this spring.

Hooking onto the lister

  Daniel has found by trial and error over the past 40 years that this minimum tillage combination of shallow chiseling and forming rows works good to keep the top soil from blowing before the cotton is planted and to keep the surface moisture available.  There are some no-till farms in the area, but they are not having the success with cotton that minimum tillage is having.  The desert environment is presenting challenges for no-till that hopefully will be worked out, such as heavy grass infestation and surface moisture that sinks with the extreme heat. For now, our minimum tillage practice can require less herbicide usage than the no-till and the rows help to keep the surface moisture closer to the top for sprouting the newly planted seed.  We normally have only two herbicide applications per year and replace other needs for herbicide applications with spot tillage for weed control.  Daniel likes to have a conventional practice that balances the lowest chemical inputs and lowest tillage instead of going completely one direction or another. 

When all the repairs, conditioning and rows have been completed on the first farm, it all has to happen on the next farm, then the next farm...so if I hope to see the Farmer I Kiss this winter, I will have to hitch a ride in his tractor (which happens to be a great place to steal one of those famous farmer kisses!)

All this...to be here again next fall!

To see more about our soil and water practices, check out our earlier blog  Maybe the most important harvest of all.

Also follow us on our Facebook page as we start a new year of raising cotton on the edge of the largest desert in North America  Kissed A Farmer

A Buggy full of GMO Cotton

For harvest season this year, I left my office each day at noon to go run the boll buggy for the Farmer I Kiss.  So why would I go to work early to get my office work done, then drive 40 miles to the dusty, noisy, bumpy, late night job of cotton harvesting?   Because harvest season is the best time of the year.  It means we actually beat the Chihuahuan Desert and produced cotton! 

The cotton harvester puts a load of cotton in my buggy, then I take it to the module builder

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 What's that got to do with GMO cotton you ask?  Running the boll buggy gives me time to think in peace without the mess of papers that clutter my desk back in town.  Being the cotton ginner's daughter and farmer kisser that I am, I sat there thinking about, what else but cotton and how GMO technology has made our industry very different than the cotton industry of just a decade ago. Some people don't understand the science behind the technology, and what you don't understand, you normally fear.  Some people, like the Farmer I Kiss, have embraced the technology and love the wonderful benefits that it has provided.

Our beautiful cotton that contains the genetic trait which makes it resistant to the boll worm.

 Thanks to the genetic trait in our cotton that makes it resistant to the boll worm, we did not spray one drop of insecticide on our fields this year.  Not one drop.  Because we don't have to spray for the boll worm any longer, the beneficial insects are flourishing and naturally control the other minor pests.  Now, if we planted non-GMO cotton, like the farmers in Brazil that Daniel met last spring, we might have to spray our cotton up to 13 times with insecticide.  That's what the Brazilian farmers told him they have to do in order to save their non-GMO cotton crop.  Once they start spraying for the boll worm, then they have to spray for other pests because the beneficials are gone. 13 applications verses 0 applications.  In my book, there is no comparison.

Daniel and some other Texas farmers in a cotton field in Brazil.

Another benefit is how clean our fields stay because of the herbicide resistant trait.  With our fields basically free of weeds, the tractor can stay parked more often.  Daniel uses both herbicides and tillage to control weeds.  This year, he sprayed the entire field once before planting to kill the late winter and young spring weeds.  Then after the spring rains and planting, he sprayed only the parts of the fields that got a second crop of early summer weeds.  This is actually less herbicide used than if he planted non-GMO cotton, because instead of a second spraying on just some of the acres, he would have used a pre-emergant herbicide on all the acres at planting.  He also plowed only around the edges of the fields where weeds love to get started from the roadsides. Other farmers have had the same results as us with different GMO crops.

Daniel and our son-in-law Chris harvesting a clean field of cotton.

 These two genetic traits have cleaned both the air I breath and the water I drink and are preserving the soil that grows my beloved cotton.  Cleaner air since the tractor can stay parked more often.  Cleaner water since there is less herbicide on the surface to run off.  Preserving the soil since tillage has been greatly reduced.  A cleaner product since the insecticide is reduced or even eliminated in some years. That's what thinking time pulling a boll buggy full of GMO cotton will do.  It makes this farmer kisser happy to live in a cleaner world thanks to agriculture's new technology.