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.