A Life of Cotton

If I ever write my autobiography, the first line will be, “My earliest memory is of cotton.”  My playpen was in the front room of a cotton gin office.  I knew the farmers who brought their cotton to my dad’s gin so well that I thought of all of them as my “uncles.”  I always loved the clink-clank sound made by the big black weights of the old manual scale when a trailer load of cotton pulled over the deck.  When I heard that sound, I knew one of my “uncles” was about to come in and if I was lucky, they would buy a 5 cent soft drink in a thick green glass bottle from the old red soda machine and give me the first sip.

The Paymaster Gin in Ackerly that  was ran by my Grandpa Earl, about 1956

The Paymaster Gin my Dad ran in Brown, about 1959

The new Paymaster Gin my Dad built between Ackerly and Brown, about 1966

  
My Grandpa, Earl Brasher, was a cotton gin manager from the 1920's.  My Dad, Dan Brasher, was the youngest gin manager that Paymaster had ever hired when he became the manager of the Brown Gin at 21 years old in 1956.  Being the daughter of a second generation cotton ginner, and now married to a multi-generational cotton farmer, I consider the excitement of that first load of cotton as the beginning of the best time of the year, time to harvest and gin cotton! The local newspapers will run a little story each year of the farmer who harvests the first bale of cotton in the county, sometimes with a photo of the farmer and ginner standing with the actual bale of cotton.  I can't seem to find it, but I remember my Dad standing beside one of his smiling farmers in one of those little newspapers.

My Dad playing in front his his Dad's gin in Truscott, Texas, about 1945

Me and my little sister, Cindy, playing in front of our Dad's gin, the Ackerly-Brown Gin, about 1968

Growing up on my Dad's gin yard is about as good as it gets when you are a kid.  There were endless places to play hide and seek up and down the rows of cotton trailers and bales of cotton. Later, much to my Dad's dismay, those same places made for great motorcross trails for a bunch of Junior High kids on dirt bikes! While rummaging through the old photos, I came across a letter of reference for my Grandpa Earl.  Seems he was a mighty good gin manager back in the early 30's. 

Part of a letter about my Grandpa Earl from 1931.

Me and my Grandpa Earl about 1961

My seasons are not marked by a calendar, but by watching all the different colors that paint across the fields of cotton throughout the year.  Bright crayon green as it peeks up out of the ground in the spring.  Soft butter yellow flowers that turn baby girl pink, then just briefly a gem stone purple before falling off as it produces the boll in the summer.  Deep olive green and rusty red leaves as fall approaches.  Crispy brown and bridal gown white as the bolls pop open to dry in the sunshine, waiting for the best time of the year, time to harvest and gin cotton.  I have been wrapped in the the fabric of our lives quite literally my entire life, and what a beautiful, colorful life it is.

Since this is for Father's Day, here are a couple more photos of my Dad.  He was not just a gin manager, he loved big trucks and fast race horses too!  Make sure to listen to this link for a great song from my son, Billy Dan Langley, singing about Paymaster with a video showing some great footage of my Dad's gin and a community cotton harvest he organized for a friend fighting cancer:  Workin' for the Paymaster  

*Adapted from a blog I wrote for my friend Janice Person on A Colorful Adventure.

Dad finally got his own big truck to haul the cotton bales to the compress, 1980

One of Dad's horses, Ka Cee Bim, in the winner's circle at Sunland Park, 1981

TOPGUARD Fungicide for Texas Cotton Gets Top Marks!

For the second year in a row, the Farmer I Kiss used TOPGUARD Fungicide when he planted our cotton.  You may have read my previous two blogs about TOPGUARD, Serendipity and No Fungus Among Us, where I have talked about the 100 year fight West Texas cotton farmers have had with cotton root rot.  The results that area farmers have gotten with TOPGUARD are amazing.  Fields of beautiful white cotton have replaced fields of white cotton mixed in with huge areas of black, dead cotton.  Here is a link to a great short video showing our neighbors and their success with TOPGUARD.  Click Here

Below are photos that show our farm that had TOPGUARD and a farm 1/2 mile away that did not have TOPGUARD applied.  The trees in the background of the neighboring farm are the trees around our barn, so you can see that the farms are very close to one another.  The results are very evident:

 

Our field of cotton with TOPGUARD back on 9/15/2013

Neighboring field and all the brown plants have died from Root Rot

Acres and Acres of cotton are affected

Why is there one plant that is unaffected?  No one knows that answer!

That's our barn in the background where our farm of Root Rot-Free cotton lies.  I would add that where the cotton did not die of root rot, this neighboring field produced very good cotton.

TOPGUARD is not without it's drawbacks.  Cotton is a tricky plant to get established each spring to say the least, and applying the new fungicide adds a new twist to that all important task.  The TOPGUARD has to be applied at exactly the right spot, so that when the seed sprouts, it can sprout through the fungicide and have it taken in by the cotton plant.  This way, the plant then protects it's self from the fungus that lives in the soil.

 Working out the specific details as to how you apply the TOPGUARD with each of the different types of planters is proving to be a very hot topic at the coffee shops and cotton gin offices.  Our friend, Marcus, shared some photos of his rigging:

These are a close up of the sprayer attached to a planter. 

The tricky part is planting while applying the TOPGUARD at exactly the right time.  A rain on the newly planted seed can cause it to seriously slow down sprouting and emerging by reducing the vigor of the seedling.  So watching the Weather Channel each night becomes very serious business during planting season.

Look closely and you will see that only one row of cotton is up.  This row had a nozzle that was not working and did not get TOPGUARD applied.  The other rows had working nozzles and it took several more days before they emerged.  Eventually all the cotton emerged and this field does not have any root rot.

We had a big, fast, hard falling three inch rain on one of our farms after we had planted with TOPGUARD and before the seed had sprouted.  This washed the loose soil in and packed the seed bed so tight that the tiny cotton plants could not push through so we had to replant. Along the outside of the field, we found plants trying to push through the crust where Daniel's planter missed a few inches, showing that the plants were not affected by the rain on the TOPGUARD.  We hope that tells us that we applied it at the right depth. 

These are some seedlings that were trying to push up through the hard crust that formed after the 3" rain.  This is why we had to replant the entire field, not because of any negative effects from the TOPGUARD.

 

 Once Daniel replanted, we got a perfect stand within 5 days of planting, and the end result shows that the TOPGUARD was still there and was taken up by the plants so that they were protected from the root rot fungus.

Replanted cotton just coming up next to a stand of older cotton that was planted earlier and came up prior to the big rain.

Perfect little cotton plants protected from the evils of Cotton Root Rot by TOPGUARD!!

 Many farmers are foregoing the cost and headaches of applying TOPGUARD and just living with the dead cotton in their fields.  Perhaps they are waiting until the farmers who are using the fungicide, like the one I Kiss, have worked out all the kinks.  I for one am happy to be standing on the turn row with the Farmer I Kiss, looking at beautiful fields of white cotton this year!

Lessons From Spain

My first ever Guest Blogger is none other than my amazing Niece, Jayci Cave.  Jayci is a Senior at Texas Tech University (GUNS UP!!) majoring in Ag Communications with a minor in Ag Economics.  She is the daughter of a third-generation cotton farmer and the grand-daughter of a second generation cotton ginner, so like her Aunt Suzie, she has been surrounded by cotton since the day she was born.  This summer, Jayci spent time in Spain learning about their agriculture from the field to the market place.  She has shared some of her experiences here and has related them back to our beloved West Texas Cotton.

Jayci in a vineyard in Spain

Agriculture.  This one word has many different meanings and every person associates it with something specific to their lives. For me, when I think of agriculture I think of family, hard work, good values, cotton, school, and Spain. Yes you heard me correctly, Spain. 

            My father is third generation dry-land cotton farmer in West Texas. Before this summer, agriculture was something I associated with being home and cotton farming. I am a senior at Texas Tech University pursuing a degree in agricultural communication with a minor in agriculture economics. My education is another one of the many faces I put on agriculture. 

            Now, let’s get back to Spain. When most people think of Spain they probably think of flamenco dancing, Spanish food, or even the beautiful architecture. For me, however, Spain holds a very different meaning. This past June, I had the opportunity to study abroad in Seville, Spain. While there I took two agricultural economics classes, Farm and Ranch Management and Agricultural Marketing. From now on, I will forever associate Spain with agriculture. 

The vineyard "Vinicola"

          While we were in Spain, we had the opportunity to study the industry and look at the different aspects of agriculture. Not only were we able to look at the farming side of things, but also how the products were marketed and how both differed from the practices in the United States. 

            We saw a lot of high-value agriculture while in Spain. Although, we did see a couple of cotton fields, vineyards and olive orchards were much more prominent. We also had the opportunity to visit a strawberry farm, olive press, winery, hog farm, and a ham processing facility. 

What an amazing experience!

             Cotton is a commodity, which means in order to successfully make a living; a large amount of land is needed. With grapes, however, they are a high value product. The vineyard/winery we visited was a cooperative. The cooperatives 400 members own and manage both the cooperative and the winery, which purchase their product. Each member farms around two to six hectares of land; a hectare is approximately two and a half acres. The producers rely solely on the plants to be rain fed and land in the region we visited costs around $13,000 per hectare. When looking at land and production costs, maintaining a vineyard is fairly inexpensive. How nice would it be if a cotton farmer could be successful under these same conditions? 

Non-irrigated grapes!!

             When comparing this operation to those in Texas the first obvious difference is that Texas wineries are not cooperatives. Another major difference is most Texas vineyards are irrigated. The weather does not allow them to be rain fed like the vineyard we toured in Spain. Other than irrigation techniques, most of the farming practices in Spain are very similar to those in the United States. However, the producers in Texas also farm somewhat larger plots. The average plot size is between five and ten acres. One winery in Texas may only get grapes from around 20 producers, while the cooperative in Spain has around 400 members. This is a significant difference in the size of the wineries. 

Barrels and Barrels of Spanish Wine!

             Studying in Spain allowed me to broaden my view of agriculture. When thinking of the word agriculture now, along with my family and cotton, I think of my adventures in Spain and the different aspects of agriculture I was exposed to during my time in Spain.

            What does the word agriculture mean to you?

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!!!

How does it stack up: STAX, WTO and Cotton

Although the Farmer I Kiss raises some wheat and milo in order to rotate the land from cotton every two to four years, these crops are planted mainly for their foliage that can be incorporated into the topsoil.  They are not his primary focus, because at the end of the day, no matter which crop is in the field, he is a cotton farmer. 

A Cotton Rose by any other name would still smell as sweet.

Cotton Organizations

One of the things that comes with being a cotton farmer are the great cotton organizations that exist across the southern states.  One of the best is the National Cotton Council, (NCC) who "serves as the central forum for consensus-building among producers, ginners, warehousers, merchants, cottonseed processors/dealers, cooperatives and textile manufacturers. The organization is the unifying force in working with the government to ensure that cotton's interests are considered."   The regional organization here is the Southern Rolling Plains Cotton Growers, (SRPCG) who are members along with other regional groups of the Texas Cotton Producers, Inc. (TCP)  Our very good friend and fellow Concho Valley cotton farmer is currently the president of  TCP.   These organizations have spent the past couple of years developing a program for cotton producers called STAX, Stacked Income Protection Plan for Upland Cotton.


STAX and the WTO

STAX is an additional crop insurance product that can be purchased in addition to the regular crop insurance policy.  It helps to cover the large deductibles that the regular crop insurance policy has and works as an area-wide type of a product instead of basing coverage on a farmers individual operation and yields.  Many of the aspects of the STAX program were developed to answer the issues that are unique to cotton due to a World Trade Organization dispute that Brazil raised against features of the U. S. cotton program.  In March, the Delta Farm Press stated, "Besides providing a much-needed safety net for an industry that is reeling from a greater-than-50-percent reduction in cotton prices over the last two years, policymakers also face the challenge of ultimately settling the WTO case filed by the government of Brazil nearly a decade ago."

Direct Payments Eliminated

The STAX program has been embraced by most policymakers who are involved in creating the new Farm Bill currently being put together in Washington, D. C. As it was originally designed, STAX in combination with the elimination of direct payments, SURE disaster program and counter-cyclical payments would reduce spending in the cotton program by an estimated 46%, a number that is much greater than many other commodities are proposing for their spending reductions.

Strong Safety Net

The supply of food and fiber are a vital part of our national security.  The natural disasters of the past two years have brought our food and fiber supply under attack, reenforcing the need for a strong, stable and affordable safety net with crop insurance serving as it's backbone.  As the new Farm Bill looks to eliminate most of cotton's program funds, support for the STAX program as an affordable option for the portion of their risks that currently have no coverage is basically unanimous among cotton producers across the cotton belt.   Organizations like the NCC, SRPCG and TCP are working hard to represent the cotton farmers, like the one I Kiss, from all across the cotton belt as our policymakers develop a Farm Bill that will have sweeping changes and much needed spending reductions.

Shouldn't we have parades? It's National Agriculture Day

We have parades in this town at the drop of a hat.  The small street down by the river gets blocked off at least once a month for a line of crate paper adorned floats.  But March 19th will be conspicuously quiet down along the river road.  No floats, no motorcycle groups, no marching bands.  Yet, here in town, we will all eat at least three meals that day, wear clothes and drive our cars.

March 19th is National Agriculture Day.  Not only should we recognize the day, we should have a BIG parade to celebrate those who produce the food we eat, the fiber we wear and the fuel we burn.  San Angelo is an agriculture town.  In fact, at one point in time, we were the wool and mohair capital of the world.  Just get out an old encyclopida and there we are, our one claim to fame.  Shouldn't we block off the river road for trailers full of sheep and goats?  Shouldn't we invite all the farmers to drive their tractors through the middle of downtown while we line the streets to cheer for them?

Sadly, the day may go past with most Americans failing to even know it's National Agriculture Day as they go about their lives eating three meals of safe affordable food, wearing comfortable cotton clothes and driving cars fueled in part by grain derived ethanol.

On March 19th, I plan to thank the Farmer I Kiss and all the other farmers I know for their part in making America such a great place to live.  I hope you do the same!

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

.

 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.

There is no Fungus Among Us: TOPGUARD Fungicide proves effective against Cotton Root Rot

In following up on my blog Serendipity, I am happy to report that the Cotton Root Rot fungus that the Farmer I Kiss has fought for 40 years is no where to be found!  The fungicide TOPGUARD worked and our cotton did not die this year.  For the first time in cotton history, there is a treatment THAT WORKS for Cotton Root Rot.

Not a single stalk of dead cotton!

We took a big risk and invested in applying TOPGUARD when we planted our dryland cotton.  It was a huge investment, considering you never know what the year will bring out here next to the Chihuahuan Desert.  The spring started out very favorable with above average rainfall, so in late May Daniel made the final decision to spend $50 per acre on our best farm and see for ourselves if this newest in a long line of promised cures would work.  IT DID!  Where we applied the TOPGUARD at the full approved rate, we had not one dead stalk of cotton.  (OK, that's not totally true.  The pressure dropped on the spray nozzles and there is a tiny little spot where there is dead cotton.)

That's it!  One tiny area where the spray nozzles lost pressure.

Now, take those farmers who decided not to invest in TOPGUARD and you can see the difference:

Neighbor down the road who didn't use TOPGUARD (and who asked to remain anonymous)

TOPGUARD was approved for use on cotton this year for the first time.  It is estimated that cotton root rot causes approximately $29 million dollars damage annually for Texas cotton growers.  Beating this disease will mean amazing cotton production when the rain cooperates.  Right now, the process to allow TOPGUARD to be labeled for cotton permanently is underway.  The fungicide has been used safely on soybean fungus and other crop diseases for many years.

It was only because a fungicide was stockpiled for a soybean fungus that didn't hit the U.S. which caused the whole study on cotton root rot because someone needed to do something with all those jugs in their warehouse and now we don't have dead cotton!  Serendipity folks, serendipity.

See our other posts about TOPGUARD:  If Only and Serendipity